I made the steamed buns from this season’s Great British Bake Off. The recipe is generously provided by GBBO (I know because I am obsessed with them).
I made adorbs beef patties topped with tiny circles of muenster cheese, oven roasted red onion (I did not want the circles to be broken when sautéing them in a pan), and a dollop of spicy ketchup and diced dill pickle. I realize the recipe called for gherkins and sun-dried tomato puree, but I am a blue collar burger gal.
After making these aborbs patties (I used a biscuit cutter as directed to make uniform patties and cheese slices), I wrapped the steamed bun dough around each one. It was a week or two since I saw the episode, so I am not sure how Lottie did it. I tipped my burger so the ketchup part was on the top of the bun. As you can see below, there were no leaks so I was pretty pumped.
I also made potato chips while I prepped the dough, cut the patties, etc. These are affectionately called “chippies” in our home. They are simply potato slices using a mandolin slicer. I bake them at 400 for a bit and flip them half way. The timing is never the same because cooking chippies is mysterious and filled with terrors.
I was VERY excited about this recipe. Also nervous. I ended up successfully making these and the burgers inside weren’t dry (which Paul Hollywood complained about). Next time I am definitely making oven fries instead of chippies because that was a lot to juggle at the same time. Several chippies burned and that made me sad.
Oh, and speaking of burning… there were a few issues with this experiment:
- I accidentally almost started the bamboo steamer basket on fire. The water in my skillet evaporated so the bamboo turned black. I purchased a new one. My husband doesn’t know this yet, but he will figure it out if he reads this post or notices the mint condition of the steamer basket next time. Ha!
- I had bright pink hands from kneading color into the dough. The green wasn’t as potent as the red, apparently. This took a day to go away and also took a hand towel along with it. 🙂
Leftovers: Brunch Apple Buns
Since there are only two of us, I made five steamed buns instead of 8. I filled the other three steamed buns with cooked cinnamon apples for brunch the following day!
This involved steaming them twice. I did not want the dough to keep rising, so I steamed them after we finished our burgers. Then I let them chill in the fridge in an airtight container. The next day I boiled more water and steamed them for 5 minutes to warm them back up. It worked! Thanks, internet.
I also made a glaze out of confectioners sugar and lemon juice. This was delish and we had no steamed buns leftover within 24 hours. I would say that was a success. Check out Thor guarding one of those adorbs apple buns below:
xo,
PhD & Patisserie 