KAF Beautiful Burger Buns, stuffed version

I’m a reluctant Facebooker. I don’t love the interface or the company’s ethics, but it’s a good low-investment way to keep up with the people in my life who don’t do other online things, and it’s a fun place to see what companies are up to. Earlier today, I had a good time on King Arthur Flour’s Facebook page, when they posted about a perennial fave, Beautiful Burger Buns, originally by “Moomie” (Ellen), which are the standard bun in our house. I mentioned that I often fill them, and before I knew it, I’d promised to make them for dinner, so here you go! :-)

The kid took SO many photos, as did I. I’m gonna make some of them a bit smaller so this page doesn’t go crazylong, but feel free to click to embiggen.

First, gather everything together. You should have made and cooled the fillings beforehand. Fillings can be as simple as leftovers, or canned red bean paste, or as elaborate as you feel up to. One favorite of ours is to make extra pulled pork and make buns with it the next day.

Mise en place, in no special order: meat, mushrooms, pickles, olives, ketchup, dough, cheese, sesame seeds, baking sheet, omelet

Next, make the wonderful dough at the link above, either by hand, mixer, or bread machine. I did it by bread machine this time, but I’ve done it all three ways, and it works great every time. Then pull off an eighth of the dough (I do this by weight; feel free to guesstimate) and flatten it into a roughly circular disk.

Next, plop way too much filling on top of the disk. Don’t worry about it; the dough will stretch to wrap the filling.

The part that was tricky to photograph is closing the bun. Essentially, I pull the edges of the circle up and over the filling, while gently closing my hand, making kind of a purse filled with filling.

This time around, I made three kinds for your viewing pleasure:

Cheeseburger (ground beef, cheddar cheese, just barely enough ketchup to bind the meat, and a pickle slice in each bun)

Pizza (ground beef, sauteed mushrooms, a whole olive in each — usually, I’d moisten it with spaghetti sauce, but I didn’t realize I was out of sauce)

Breakfast bun (cheddar cheese omelet)

Usually, I find the last rise only takes around 20-30 minutes on these, not the hour recommended, but everything else is the same, including the baking time.

I really recommend making these. It’s not hard, and it’s impressive. Plus, they make great lunches the next day.