How to Make Brioche Buns

Ever wondered how to make brioche buns? These ever so slightly sweet but savory buns are just the best for burgers and hot dogs. They really compliment the meat. Or, my favorite is to slice the buns and toast them and then spread smooth chicken liver pate all over them. Oh, man, my mouth is watering right now!!

Making brioche buns is actually quite simple. The only problem is they need to rest for anywhere between 1 and 3 hours depending on the quality of the yeast used and, more importantly, the temperature of the dough. Don’t let this put you off though. I’ll show you below how you can speed up or slow down the process depending on your plans for the day.

For me, I made a cool dough and went out for a couple of hours. Let the buns work around you and not the other way around ????.

Ok, let’s make them…

1. Get all of the ingredients together

As always, and especially when making any sort of bread, make sure you get all of the ingredients together before you start making the dough. It will be a messy process and you don’t want to be scratching around for ingredients with hands full of stick wet bun dough.

There are only 6 main ingredients needed for these brioche buns. Strong white flour, butter, yeast, eggs (remember to keep one of the eggs by for washing the buns before baking, sugar and sesame seeds.

2. Prepare the rising agents

Unlike some recipes that use self-raising flour or baking powder, this recipe is traditional and uses yeast. The yeast reacts with the other ingredients and helps to form gluten which, when heated in an oven, expands and solidifies to give you the bread we know and love.

To make the yeast solution take the water and add the milk and yeast. Mix this together and leave to rest on the side for 5 minutes or so. It’s ready to use when you can see bubbles rising to the top of the mixture. This means the yeast is working.

The speed at which the yeast reacts, and thus the time needed for the dough to rest before baking is dictated, in the main, by the temperature at which the yeast is working. The warmer the temperature the quicker the reaction. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to determine exact time but the bottom line is if you use warm water and warm milk the dough will rise quicker (say 1 hour) compared to using cold water and milk where that dough can take up to 3 hours to rise.

3. Prepare the crumble

While you are waiting for the yeast to start its reaction you should make the crumble. To do this first take the four and put it in a large mixing bowl. Add a pinch of salt and the cubed butter.

Now, simply mix the butter into the flour by rubbing it in between your hands until fine crumb forms. This will not take as long as you think and should be completed easily before the yeast solution is ready.

4. Make the basic dough

To make the basic dough first make a well in the center of the crumb and add 2 whisked eggs and the yeast solution. Now, mix together until a sticky dough is formed and all of the dry ingredients have mixed in with the wet.

Sprinkle flour on your clean work surface and put the sticky dough on top of the flour.

5. Finish making the dough

To finish making the dough you need to knead it for 10 – 12 minutes until the dough becomes stringy in texture. This is when the gluten has formed and the dough is ready.

You will find the initial dough is very sticky so use dry flour to help this but try not to add too much. Just enough to allow you to knead the dough.

Once complete, form a ball with the dough and place in a greased bowl and cover with a clean tea towel.

You now need to leave the brioche bun dough to rest and rise to around double its size. This will take between 1 and 3 hours depending on the temperature of the dough (above).

6. Make the brioche buns

With the dough ball double the size remove it from the bowl and place it on your work surface. Knock all of the air out of it and knead again for 2 minutes. The dough is now ready to form the buns. Split the dough into bun sizes and roll the buns to form the right shape.

You can make any size bun you want but as a rough guide, a small bun requires around 60 grams of dough with a large at 90 grams. Use 75 gams for hot dog finger buns.

Once complete, place the buns on a lined baking tray and cover again with a clean tea towel. Leave the buns to rise again to around double the size. This will take approximately 1 hour.

7. Bake the buns

To finish the brioche buns off ready for baking which the remaining egg and brush egg wash over all of the buns. Finally, sprinkle with sesame seed. Now, bake the bun in a pre-heated oven at 200C / 180C Fan for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

And there you have it. Wonderful freshly baked brioche buns to use as you will. Also, remember these buns freeze well for around a month so don’t worry if you have few left over. You can have them again next week! Yum!!

OK my beautiful baking buddies, that’s it for now. I do hope you enjoyed this brioche bun post as much as I enjoyed eating them! They actually are really good. Give them a go. I dare you…

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As always, many thanks for reading and until next time…Steve.

 

8. Nutritional values

9. Printable recipe