Dan Lepard’s Slider Buns with Buffalo Burger
Dan asked Luc, Fergus and I to do a home trial of his slider buns coming out tomorrow in his Guardian column, Luc’s results are here, and Fergus’ buns are here.
What’s so different about these buns? It’s the method, using a roux method. I first heard about this from a blogger friend Sunflower last year, her recipe is here. Sunflower told me it was a very popular way of making soft bread in the Far East. I first mention this method in my post when searching for soft bread recipes for allergy kid in here. It’s a method called tangzhong. Dan based his recipe on Yvonne Chen’s “65 degree”, a blogger Christine has a recipe here, but it does contain egg in that version.
Dan’s recipe, which he developed for the book Hawksmoor at Home, uses milk and more unusual custard powder, you can replace it with cornflour, I did, I couldn’t get hold of custard powder. The idea of this is to add richness to the dough, not dissimilar to the current fashion of brioche burger buns but without adding eggs, this makes them easily adaptable for vegans or allergy sufferers.
The ideal burger bun for a lot of people is a soft one, which is why perhaps the brioche version has become so popular, but I find them too sweet when I’ve had them and the sweetness over takes the burger, which it shouldn’t. For me the importance is in the crumb, the crumb should break apart easily, and not have a chewy mouthfeel. I wouldn’t want to be chewing the bread long after I’ve chewed the burger. These buns fulfil that.
I’ve made Dan’s version and then a dairy-free and cornflour-free version for allergy kid. They were so successful in how they turned out and how much the kids loved them, all of the kids. These will become my standard now for burger buns.
Having also seen how easy it is to make a roux based bread I’m now going to make a plain loaf for allergy kid to replace her cravings for supermarket sliced bread. I’m trying!
Dan’s Slider Buns
Dan’s Slider Bun Recipe is Here
Bring the milk and custard powder (or cornflour) to the point the mixture thickens nicely, keep stirring.
Add the butter and sugar and stir in.
Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let it cool at room temperature.
Dairy-Free & Cornflour-Free Version
I made the allergy kid’s version with arrow root available from supermarkets or heath food shops, used the same amount as the cornflour in Dan’s recipe.
I replace the milk with rice milk. Followed the same instructions.
The arrow root version of the roux has a slight translucent look about, the normal purpose of using arrow root. Reminds me of a squid’s body.
When the roux mixture is cool, I left mine to cool completely, add the flour, salt, yeast and mix everything in really well.
At first it appears not to want to mix into dough, it crumbles up, but it will eventually come together.
Rest, Dan says for 10mins, I left mine for 30mins.
Then knead it until the dough is soft. Rest again for 30mins.
Don’t do what I did and rest the standard dough too close to the radiator and killed off some of the yeast in it. Learn from my stupidity, and it’s not as if this was the first time either!
After the second rest, shape them. I made mine into medium size 125g each with some of the dough.
The rest of the dough I made into a loaf because I needed toast bread for the kids’ breakfast this morning!
We had the rolls last night and they were a hit. I was really pleased how the allergy version turned out.
The normal batch should’ve risen more had I not did what I did. Learn from me and leave them on the dinning room table covered, they will rise but like Luc says on his post they will take time because of the cold weather.
I had problems trying to stick the seeds on, I used flax seeds (allergy kid is allergic to sesame) and white poppy seeds (cheaper than black poppy seeds). I brushed the tops with olive oil and the seeds stuck through the bake but as soon as I touch them once baked they dropped off. Luc gave me a tip of brushing the tops with water/milk and adding the seeds when the buns are proving so they embed in the dough. Will try that next time.
By the way, oldest daughter’s boyfriend just had a bun toasted on its own and loved it.