Moomie's Buns - The Hamburger Bun to Rule Them All

Last weekend I made a recipe originally known as Moomie's Buns. These hamburger buns (suitable, of course, to serve as general sandwich buns) are substantial. There will be no danger of a juicy hamburger soaking through and turning the bun to mush. They are not dense, though, but are tender, and almost light. Biting into one of these hamburger buns is remarkably satisfying. They are the Platonic ideal of a hamburger bun; the quintessential bun that all others strive to be.

A few weeks ago I finally tried out the dough hook on my monster KitchenAid mixer and was, well, hooked. I'd always kneaded my yeast breads by hand and just never made the transition to machine, even though I've had the mixer for years. Once I saw how easy it was to translate my recipes to the dough hook, I got into a yeast baking mood. I thought I'd break out from my usual loaves and give bun making a try. Having recently looked up the recently popular cinnamon roll recipe on the King Arthur Flour site, I did a search there for hamburger buns. When I opened the recipe for "Beautiful Burger Buns" I knew I'd hit the winner.

Why? Because I knew "Beautiful Burger Buns" by a different name, referenced in the recipe headnote: "Moomie's Buns." This is a recipe I'd had in my to-try folder for at least 20 years. You see, back in the day, before most people were even on the internet, I frequented a couple of cooking bulletin boards. These were full-fledged communities, where participants eagerly debated the fine points of dishes and shared recipes they were excited about. 

One such recipe was called "Moomie's Buns." It was written in the voice of Moomie, whoever she was, and wasn't just a dry type-up from a cookbook or clipping. It garnered accolades from everyone who tried it. I copied the recipe into a plain text file and stored with others I'd snagged from the boards. And it sat there, gathering virtual dust, dutifully transferred from one computer to another, and later into cloud storage. I would see the file, or be reminded of the recipe somehow, and think, "One day I'll have to give that a try."

Fast forward to 2021, and here was Moomie. It was fate. 

It turns out that Moomie had posted the recipe for her buns on the King Arthur forum all those years ago. It had been reposted not only on the bulletin board where I got it, but seemingly all over the internet. It was a sensation in the internet recipe world as it existed then. If you Google "Moomie's Buns" you'll see that this is just the 1,000,000th blog post about it. Still, I am moved to share, tossing my tribute into the ether.

 

The official King Arthur recipe has been tweaked a bit from Moomie's original; my take below is an amalgamation of both the original and the KA version, with some tips of my own.

NOTE: For general information on making yeast breads, see the previous post Yeast Bread - Yes You Can!

Moomie's Hamburger Buns

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour*
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons table salt
1 tablespoon instant yeast**
3/4 to 1 cup warm water (105°F - 110°F)
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 large egg (+ 1 optional egg yolk if using egg white wash, see below)

3 tablespoons butter, melted
OR
1 egg white beaten with 1 tablespoon water

* For most all-purpose flour needs I use White Lily, but for yeast breads you'll want something with a higher protein content. I used Kroger brand because it's the unbleached flour I had on hand. If all-purpose weren't specified in the recipe, bread flour would be my go-to. I haven't tried it with bread flour yet, though, so I don't know how that might or might not skew the results. For more info on flours, see my previous post Picking the Right Flour for the Job.

** I have not yet tried it, but I assume that you could use active dry yeast. I would start with one packet in an initial attempt; that would be a little less than the amount of instant yeast here, but appropriate for the amount of flour. You'd want to proof it using about half the sugar and warm water before adding to the rest of the ingredients.

Instructions

In the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, and instant yeast. (If mixing by hand, use a large mixing bowl.) Add the remaining ingredients and mix until well combined. Knead the dough (with the dough hook or by hand) until it is smooth and elastic and passes the windowpane test. With my mixer, this usually means going at medium speed for 10 to 12 minutes. Ish. Every day, every dough is going to be different, so don't go by time alone.

Lightly oil a bowl that's more than twice the volume of the dough. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it once so the top is oiled. Loosely cover the bowl, set in a warm place (80°F - 90°F), and let the dough rise for 1 to 2 hours, or until it's nearly doubled in bulk. Again, you're looking for the visual cue, not the time. Lots of variables go into how long it takes to get the proper rise, so check it in an hour and go from there. My "warm place" is my oven with a pan of hot tap water on the lower shelf; this usually means my dough is ready to go in about an hour and a half. If the ambient temperature is colder than 80°F, it may take more than 2 hours.

With the tips of your fingers, gently pull the dough away from the edge of the bowl all the way around. Turn it out, top side down, onto a lightly floured, impeccably clean & sanitized counter or rolling mat. Lightly flour the dough and press on it, stretching it out to gently deflate. As you work, you may see large bubbles. Pop those as you go - pop, pop, pop. The more bubbles, the more holes your finished bread will have.

NOTE: I got a lot of valuable information on the next step by watching the video linked from the recipe on the King Arthur site (Martin Bakes at Home). The approach of the video is backwards; he starts by showing how to use the dough to make cinnamon rolls, but towards the end he shows dividing the dough and shaping the buns. The technique of pulling the edges of each ball into the center, then rounding on the counter, were invaluable in my result coming out so well. I am terrible on individual shaping-of-things, and I felt like a rock star here.

Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. If you'd like to be precise -- and who wouldn't? -- you can weigh the dough. Weigh the whole thing to get the total, then divide by 8 to get the weight each piece should be. (This will probably be easier if you switch your scale to grams instead of ounces.) Shape each piece into a round ball, then flatten into a disk that's about 3" in diameter.

Place the buns on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, cover, and let rise for about an hour, until significantly puffy. Again, I use my cold oven with a pan of hot water on the lower shelf. I usually remove the dough and the pan of water after about 45 minutes so that I can start heating the oven to 375°F. When the oven is the right temperature (check! Don't just depend on your oven saying it's ready), brush the buns with about half of the melted butter OR the egg white wash, whichever you are using. 

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden. If you want to check the internal temperature with an instant read thermometer, they should be 190°F to 200°F. Remove them from the oven; if you used butter instead of an egg wash before baking, brush with the remaining (1 1/2 Tbsp) melted butter. Cool the buns on the pan on a rack for a few minutes, then place the buns directly on the rack to finish cooling. Allow to cool completely before slicing with a serrated knife.

Tips

Brushing buns with melted butter will give them a soft, light golden crust. Brushing with an egg-white wash (1 egg white beaten with 2 Tbsp water) will give them a shinier, darker crust. (For the buns pictured in this post, I actually used a whole egg wash.) If you use an egg white wash, you can add the yolk to the dough as noted above. For seeded buns, brush with the egg wash, then sprinkle with sesame seeds, poppy seeds, etc., patting them a bit to help them stick.

Of course you can make the buns in different sizes. If you make 12 buns, bake for 12 to 15 minutes. For slider buns or large dinner rolls, try 24 pieces; these should also bake in 12 to 15 minutes.