The FLUFFIEST Hamburger Buns

 Do you see this picture?? These buns are golden! The sun is shining through the top bun and you can see how fluffy and perfectly golden brown it is. Do you need more convincing? 

This recipe is based on Joshua Weissman's hamburger buns!

Ingredients

Tangzhong (Japanese Milk Paste) 

2 tablespoons (20g) flour

2 tablespoons (27g) water

4 tablespoons (60g) whole milk

Dough

1/2 cup (120g) whole milk at 95f (30c)

1 tablespoon (9g) instant yeast

2 1/2 cups (320g) flour

1 teaspoon (7g) fine sea salt

2 1/2 tablespoons (35g) granulated sugar

1 whole egg- room temp preferred

1 egg yolk- room temp preferred

3 tablespoons (42g) unsalted butter, softened

Egg wash

1 egg

1 tablespoon (15 grams) milk

Directions

Tangzhong

Combine the flour, water and whole milk in a small sauce pan on medium heat. Whisk the mixture continuously until it becomes a thick paste. Take a spatula and scoop it into a bowl and set aside to cool.

Then you're going to take your whole milk (that's 95°) and mix in the yeast. You want to let this sit for 5-10 minutes until it gets little bubbles on top to make sure the yeast is still alive and well. 

In a bowl (or a stand mixer bowl) take the 2 1/2 cups of flour, sugar and salt and mix it together. 

Now if you're using a stand mixer, this is where you attach the dough hook on to it, but if you don't, just make sure you have your hands. 

With your hand mixer running on low speed you're going to add in the yeast and water mixture. Let that run for a few seconds and then add the Tangzhong paste, whole egg and egg yolk. Increase your mixing speed to medium low until thoroughly combined. For people using your hands you don't have to mix faster just make sure everything is well combined. 

Then you are going to slowly add in your 3 tablespoons of softened butter (a tablespoon at a time). Then after it's all mixed let the stand mixer or your hands mix it for 5 minutes  or until it's nice and smooth. 

Then lightly grease a medium sized bowl and spray it with some cooking spray. Take your dough and gently fold in the sides, just to bring it in, and then place that seam side down on a work surface and rub it around in a circle making constant contact with it until you get a nice taut ball. Place the bowl in your bowl,  cover with a lightly damp towel and place it in a warm area for 1-1 1/2 hours  or until it doubles in size. You can place this in your oven with the light on but make sure not to bake anything in the meantime!

Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and lightly flour a work surface and place your dough on it. Measure out 6 equal dough balls. I weighed all of my dough and then divided it by six and weighed them out on my scale but you can do whatever strikes your fancy. 

Lightly fold the corners of your dough ball into it's self, flip it over and roll it around with your hand until once again you have a nice taut dough ball. 

Take 2 equal sized baking sheets and line parchment paper on one of them. Take your dough balls and place them 2  inches apart and cover them with the other baking sheet. Let them rise for 1-2 hours or until doubled, you can also loosely cover these with plastic wrap but be very careful. 

Now it's time to make the egg wash! Take a small bowl and crack your egg and pour in your milk into the bowl. Mix together until nice and whisky. Get a brush and lightly (so you do not deflate them) brush on the egg wash onto the balls. Make sure to get ever nook and cranny so that they will be nice and golden brown once baked. 

Bake them at 375° or 190° Celsius for 16-18 minutes or until deep golden brown. Remove from the oven and admire your work. You can dig into them or you can brush some melted butter (or fancy brown butter) over them and eat! 

I hope you enjoyed making them and they turned out well!