bison burger

My buns are better than your buns FACT so you might as well give up right now.

Speaking of whipping out sandwich bread in minutes, commercial yeast is fun to watch.

* One cup warm water
* One teaspoon commercial yeast (stored in the freezer)
* One squirt honey, not stirred because I didn't want to mess up the yeast that had spread across the surface of the water. It hydrated and sank where the cells that fell to the center came into contact with the honey that also sank there. It virtually exploded into bloom. All this happened in no more than three minutes. I do not understand why instructions say "proof the yeast for at least 10 minutes." My experience is is the yeast has nothing to prove, it unfailingly activates, and it does so very rapidly. I stand there and watch cells dividing and expanding right in front of my eyes.

Flour is added by the rounded tablespoon, two at a time. First whole wheat (2), then A/P (6). Stir, and check absorption. Then whole wheat again (1) and A/P again (3). So that comes out to 12 rounded tablespoons flour. MATHS! But the tablespoons were inconsistent. Some were heaping others were merely rounded. So that invalidates the maths dunn'it, and we're back to intuition and to the world of feeling things. I could have just as easily dumped it in directly from the bags.

Salt added at the mid point of kneading the dough. The dough was flattened out at that point so salt was sprinkled on as if seasoning a pizza. Then the kneading resumed.

Ground grain releases enzymes that perform a molecular unlocking action the moment the grain comes in contact with water in a process termed autolysis. It is the self-destruction of the cell. Savvy bakers take advantage of autolysis by allowing freshly formed dough to sit for ten to twenty minutes before they begin to knead it. When that is done, you can actually feel through your fingertips the difference in resistance of the dough. I did not do that. I started kneading right away, so I knew the dough that I was working was more resistant than it needed to be. Instructions will  also say to knead for at least ten minutes to develop the gluten protein. I do not do that either. I think I'm a little rougher on dough than the average kneader. The point of kneading is to coax the protein molecules to unravel and stretch out, to connect with adjoining strands and to form a net that will trap air. So the style of kneading I use also differs from the average instruction you may read. It has everything to do with stretching. Like a boy making a snake out of clay, I roll the dough then stretch it until it breaks or nearly breaks. Then smash it together into a ball again and form another snake. Then stretch the snake again again, and so on. Each successive snake stretch informs me of the condition of the protein stretchability and the molecular net that is forming under hand. I carry on like this really roughing it up until the desired stretchability is achieved. I pound the stretched snake on the work surface to force it to stretch without breaking. The dough can be felt softening through the fingertips. This takes about five minutes, if that, and it's fun!

Don't say it.

And so on like this a few more times.

The final snake is stubby so that its divisions can be easily visualized.

I prefer to form them not as tall as regular burger buns so I can cram them into my mouth.  If you prefer them tall then obviously you wouldn't form the dough to such flat discs.

The risen buns were painted with water to help the stretched surface remain moist and elastic in intense heat long enough for them to expand. To improve the crumb, not necessarily to have taller buns.  Some bakers spray water during the first 10 minutes but that's all the time these buns will have. Plus there is a pizza stone in the oven that I don't want to risk cracking.

These are sturdier than 100% white flour buns. They contain 25% whole wheat milled from grain at home so that portion is loaded with everything that grain possesses. This is not true of flour marketed as 100% whole grain because of legalistic  merchandising shenanigans of gigantic commercial concerns -- and there ought to be a law! -- and there is are, but those laws have been lobbied to depart from your benefit.