Brioche Burger Buns

Mill your wheat on the finest setting. Combine the water, milk, flour, egg, yolk, sugar, amylase and vital wheat gluten. Autolyse for 30 minutes.
Add your yeast, salt and butter. Knead the dough until window pane is achieved.
Cover and rise for 45 minutes or until doubled. Refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight. Do not exceed 12 hours.
Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and use a bench scraper to divide the dough into ten to twelve pieces. Form into taut balls and place onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Press down on each one to flatten it out to an inch thickness.
Cover and rise for 45 minutes to an hour. Brush with an egg wash, sprinkle with sesame seeds and bake at 375 for 15 minutes or until golden brown and the dough reaches 200 degrees with a probe thermometer. Cool completely before slicing in half.

Tips for success

The perfect base for burger buns, deli sandwiches or hotdog rolls!

Dough. This dough is a good base for a variety of rolls. Burger, hotdog or deli. Simply change the way you shape it and watch the baking times.
Amylase. Amylase is an enzyme that breaks down starches into sugars. It provides the yeast with more food yielding softer doughs and lengthening shelf life. I like to use amylase in my burger buns because the texture is divine and I like make large batches and freeze the excess rolls for another time. Amylase will help the rolls taste just as fresh after freezing. You can purchase Amylase powder on Amazon.
Vital Wheat gluten. While this is optional, I do recommend trying it though as it improves the texture.
Rings. I use English Muffin rings to help keep the buns consistent size and rise upward instead of out. This is not necessary as you will just have slightly wider buns but they do create beautifully consistent results.

Step by Step

Mixing the Dough

Combine the water, milk, flour, egg, yolk, sugar, amylase and vital wheat gluten. Autolyse for 30 minutes. You can save the leftover egg white to use as the egg wash.

I like to pre-weigh my yeast, salt and butter and place it in an obvious place so I do not forget to add it in later!

Kneading

Add your yeast, salt and butter and mix until combined. I do not recommend adding the butter before the autolyse step as the oils will coat the flour, preventing it from properly hydrating.

Begin to knead your dough by hand or with a mixer. The dough will be sticky but do not add more flour as this will throw off the hydration levels. If you are kneading by hand use the slap and fold method to help with the sticky dough.

It is essential that you reach a windowpane. You can see a video on windowpanes here.
I find if you are using a kitchen aid mixer, if you do not have enough dough it will end up just going for a ride in circles. To fix this I either turn up the speed to three or four so the dough is pulled away from the hook allowing it to catch or scaling my recipe up so I have more dough. These buns freeze very well so I tend to scale up and just make a big batch. Please be aware that Kitchen Aid does not suggest mixing over level 2 with doughs to protect the motor so do so at your own risk and keep an eye on if it is getting warm. I personally have never had an issue.

Once you have reached a windowpane, cover and allow the dough to rise until almost doubled. This will take about 45 minutes to an hour. Place the dough into the fridge for 1 hour and up to 12 hours. This will allow the butter to stiffen and make the dough easier to shape.

Shaping

On a clean work surface, turn out the dough. I do not recommend flouring the surface as we will be using the surface tension to shape the dough. Instead you can use a bench scraper if it is sticking. Watch a tutorial on shaping here.

Divide your dough into 10-12 even pieces depending on the size you would like. I like using a scale to ensure the finished buns will be the same size. For 10 buns each will be around 100 grams and for 12 buns they will be about 80 grams. Take one piece and pinch the sides into the middle to form a ball and then with a cup shaped hand, move the dough in circles on the surface of the table allowing the surface tension to create a taut ball. Place the ball on a baking sheet and press down creating a 1 inch tall disc. Repeat with all the pieces. Cover and rest for 45 minutes to an hour or until tall and a poke test comes back slowly and not completely.

Resting and Baking

Preheat your oven to 375. Using the leftover egg white, add 1 tablespoon water and a tablespoon honey if you want a sweet finish. Wisk and then brush over the rolls. While the egg wash is still wet, sprinkle on your sesame seeds. Bake for 15 minutes or until the internal temperature reads 200 degrees. Cool completely before cutting open.