We had a hamburger party and I created these buns which were acclaimed a success. I don’t know how original the recipe is as I made it up out of my head. Who knows what is floating about in there? The inspiration was a book that I was browsing recently on food, ‘Ingredient Interactions - Effects on Food Quality’. Light reading. I spotted a reference that emulsifiers soften wheat doughs and increase rise. So…

1 cup UAPF
1 cup water
1 tsp active dry yeast
Room temp for 1 hour then overnight in the refrigerator.

Combine the pre-ferment with
1 tblsp honey
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup water
1 cup UAPF
2 tsp salt
3 egg yolks
1 pkg active dry yeast
whisk thoroughly and let stand 5 minutes
whisk in 3 tblsp melted butter

Stir in enough UAPF to make a workable dough. Sorry I didn’t measure the flour.
I baked them at 350 convection mode for 25 minutes.
I used my baking rings from a previous hamburger bun experiment. The rings were modified to 4.5 inches in diameter. The old 5 inch diameter was too big. I rolled the dough flat and used a ring like a cookie cutter to cut out dough. The dough tripled in size on the final rise without collapsing and even the free formed roll that I made with left over dough held its shape. The crumb, flavor and softness were just perfect.

Gene, those look absolutely beautiful! They look fluffy and soft and the crumb is just wonderful.  Hamburger buns—sandwich buns, generally—are are the one bread item I was never able to make such that I was pleased with them.  I wish I’d had your recipe, because these are just wonderful!!!!! Congratulations!!!  Buttermilk! What a great idea!!  And egg yolks!  Yum!!!!!!!!!

Gene,  who wouldn’t want to have a hamburger on one of those buns.  They look fantastic.  I am not a bread maker and I am always in awe of the people who do make homemade bread.  I think the whole yeast thing scares me. 
What a great idea - a hamburger party.

Anne, just for your information, Rose has published two recipes for hamburger buns: one is in this blog and the other one (an easier version) in an article for the Washington Post (2007).

The links are below:

http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2008/07/golden_burger_buns.html

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/recipes/2007/05/23/beranbaums-best-buns/

Gene, those look great- nice golden crumb, and I bet they smell divine!  Just wonderful

Thank you all. I just realized I forgot an ingredient.
1 tblsp of honey

I love to bury my nose in fresh bread and take a deep breath. In fact I hold almost all bread up to my nose and take a sniff before I eat it. I have seen people in restaurants look askance at my behavior.

There is nothing like the smell of fresh baked bread.  Yum!!!  Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not a bread baker.

They look perfect

What is UAPF? There are so many initialisms now that it is hard to keep up with all the short forms out there!

Unbleached All Purpose Flour

They look beautiful. I’d like a hamburger now, please, with extra pickles, .

You made up your own recipe? Impressive!!!

It certainly is JD. I just pulled some banana muffins from the oven which I tried ‘tweaking’ from a chocolate muffin recipe of Nigella Lawson’s. They looked good upon exit from the oven, now they are sad, little deflated step-children. Hope they are edible! Your buns look delicious- the hamburger ones I mean!

My experiments don’t all turn out this well. I was very curious to see the effects of adding the eggs yolks and I can only describe the result as magical. If anyone else feels adventurous enough to try this formula please let me know how things worked out.

This sort of reminds me of a lean buttermilk brioche, yum.

A few questions- how many buns does this make? (limited freezer space)  and second, how many rises did you put the dough through, two or three?  Last, is the texture of the completed dough very soft like brioche? or med-firm? (so I have some idea of how much flour to add).

Thanks!

The dough got 1 rise to double. Then I rolled it out and cut out the buns for a final rise. The one bun that I hand formed, I just tucked into a round shape and it held it’s shape well.
There were 11 huge buns. The taller ones I cut in thirds and used the top and bottom pieces. I wasn’t sure of the final rise so I made them a variety of thicknesses. The buns in the back row of the picture were just about right and they started out @3/4”. I think you could expect 16 buns if it were done correctly. I was cooking for 10 people. Maybe half the recipe would be more manageable.
The crumb is not as soft as brioche and the dough was definitely medium firm. I hand kneaded with a light dusting of flour but it was a bit sticky without the dust.

I hope all of that vagueness helps!