Ever since I ate an amazing burger at Streat Helsinki Eats, I have wanted to make some proper hamburger buns. The ones you can buy at grocery stores usually tend to be absolutely disgusting, and it is always a shame to ruin a good hamburger with buns that taste like a mix of cardboard and spit. I guarantee that after you’ve tried these you won’t be buying those ever again.

The recipe is originally from Heléne Johansson’s book called Leipä (Bröd från Brunkebergs Bageri), and I got it from the blog Pumpkin Jam. The recipe is actually  for hot dogs, but they work as well as hamburger buns.

My goal was to make the buns more interesting taste wise and a lot more funky looking. The spices are an oompf but not in a hot way. If you want plain ones, you can just leave them out (but keep the salt).

Burger buns with an Oriental twist (10-12 buns)

2 1/2 dl milk or vegetarian “milk”
37 g fresh yeast
375 g plain white flour
25 g butter or vegan margarine (room temperature)
10 g sea salt
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp cumin
1/2 tbsp garam masala
1 tbsp turmeric
1/2 tbsp curry

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm milk. Pour the mixture in a kneading machine, add the spices and the butter. Add the flour a third at a time. Knead it for 10 minutes or double the time if you’re doing it by hand. Let the dough rest for half an hour.

Cut the dough into 10-12 pieces (depending how big you want the buns – mine were quite small). Roll them into buns, put them on a tray lined with parchment paper and let them rise for 1½ hour or until they have doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 225 °C. When the oven is hot, bake the buns for around 10 minutes. If you’re not eating all of them on the same day, you can freeze the rest once they’ve cooled down.

If you want extra awesomeness, enjoy your hamburgers with some pulled seitan! Click here for our recipe.

Tiia