hamburger buns, dinner rolls

My buns are still better than your buns. They're firmer, they're more more rounded, they're warmer, they're more open, they're tastier, and they stay fresh longer. SHUT UP! They ARE!

Here's how your buns can be as good as mine. See, I'm a giver. 

Take a moment and make yourself a biga, that's  Italian for poolish, which is French for pre-fermented dough. Sponge, if you like. That would be half the amount of total dough with a fraction of the yeast and none of the salt made one day in advance. Or half a day. Or overnight. Just do it in two parts separated by time. 

The next day add all the rest of the ingredients for the full amount of dough. You'll be amazed at the difference this one simple change will make. Take it from me because I'm a freak'n EXPERT!

For 10 buns that are 3.25 oz each. 

* 3/4 C warm water

* 1/4 Teaspoon commercial yeast

* 1 to 1.5 Cups flour. However much it takes to make a loose dough.

* Cover and set aside at room temperature.

* Time. The most special ingredient of all . No effort required. No watch needed. Use as much as you want within reason.

Next day: 

* 3/4 C warm water

* NO yeast. Not necessary. Therefore, t'would be possess'd with double pomp, to guard a title that was rich before, to gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow, or with a taper-light to seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish. Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. SO DON'T DO IT!  NOOOOOOOOOOOO0000000ooo. 

Or go ahead if you want to.

* Add enough flour to stiffen the dough. As you proceed, occasionally remove a small portion and feel with your fingertips how the dough stretches. If the dough is too sticky, obviously add more flour. If the dough is too stiff, then you overdid it with the flour so correct by drizzling water. Continue in this manner until you achieve the desired ratio of liquid to flour.

* 3 Tablespoons olive oil
* 1 level teaspoon kosher salt (or less table salt)

Today, I formed the dough into little balls and they rose separately. This required  two overturned storage tubs. When the balls expanded, but didn't quite double, one by one I flattened the dough balls, which at this point are quite tender, and folded them in thirds. then stretched the folded dough again and folded it in thirds again, maintaining the stack as if it were a very thick puffy blanket, now folded into a pillow shape. Pinched the edges. Then tidied the pinches.  This treatment does not completely smash the dough nor does it completely obliterate the bubbles that formed. All it does is prevent GIGANTIC bubbles from forming and wrecking a sandwich-like bread crumb. Small bubbles okay, Huge bubbles not okay, for this application. For artesian bread and baguette types, batons, boules and the like, open crumb with large holes is desirable, but not here.

That's all you're having on the theory of bread dough for buns.   

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.