Alehouse hamburger buns

During this COVID-19 madness, I've had to shop in stores I don't usually go to.  So when I found packages of those new plant-based burgers, I decided I might as well give them a try.  Hamburger was all sold out most places.  Later, though, I thought about buns, and was trying to figure out which was less of a hassle:  try to find hamburger buns (how many stores would I have to go to?) or just make them myself.  I opted for the latter and started looking through my recipe collection.  These sounded like a good pairing.

The normal recipe makes 5 "huge" sandwich rolls, but it didn't say what size; I decided to halve the recipe hoping for at least 3 suitably-sized buns.  I generally don't like to detect salt in bread, so I reduced the salt just to be on the safe side (although the full amount would have been fine for dinner rolls.)  I increased the amount of wholemeal flour, and had to use regular AP flour.  I replaced the butter with olive oil strictly for ease of use.

Here's what I used to make four, 4½" hamburger buns:

38g (1/5 cup) rolled oats
220ml (7.5 ounces) Guinness
5 teaspoons unsalted butter olive oil (see note)
1/2 tablespoon honey (or malt syrup)
225 175g (1 cup + 2 tablespoons) strong white flour
50 100g (¾ cup) whole wheat flour, plus extra for shaping and dusting
1 teaspoon fast action active dry yeast
1 3/4 teaspoon fine salt
Oil for kneading and oat bran (or pulsed oats) for finishing

Heat the oven to 390°F. Place the oats on a tray in the oven for a bit over 25 minutes or until they turn a rich golden brown. (They were getting pretty dark at about 20 minutes, so I took them out then.)  Pour the ale into a saucepan and add the oats, then bring to the boil over a medium heat. Remove the pan from the heat, add the butter or oil and honey, cover, and leave it about 30 minutes till it's barely warm.  Add the yeast and leave to proof.
 
Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl.  Pour in the warm oat and ale mixture and stir everything together with your fingers, adding a little cold water if necessary to make a soft dough, then cover the bowl and leave for 10 minutes. Lightly oil the work surface and your hands, scoop the dough out of the bowl and gently knead it for 10 seconds. Scoop the dough back into the bowl, cover, then repeat the light knead twice more at 10-minute intervals. Leave the dough for 30 minutes, ideally somewhere it won't get chilled, then divide it into pieces.  Shape each piece of dough into a ball.  To protect the bottoms from burning, I used an air-bake baking sheet, spacing the rolls 2 inches apart. Flatten each roll to about the diameter of a hamburger bun, then dampen the surface and sprinkle with oat bran.  Cover the tray loosely and leave for about an hour until risen in height by a half.  Heat the oven to 410°F. Bake the rolls for 20 minutes. then reduce the heat to 350°F and bake until a good golden brown (if necessary), possibly just another 5 minutes.  Leave to cool on a wire rack covered loosely with a tea towel.

Note:  I forgot I was making half the recipe and used the full amount of olive oil.  Oops.

My dough was VERY sticky, but I'm not very exact with measurements.  I'd erred on the side of a wetter dough because I knew there wasn't much gluten development and I'd used the extra whole wheat flour.  I don't think even bread flour would have produced a window pane after such minimal time and handling.  Leaving the dough a little wetter gave it a little help with the rise.  However, weighing out the pieces would have been a nightmare, so I just divided it into quarters as best I could.  I floured my finger tips and lightly floured the dough ball, then shaped smooth balls by pulling the dough to the bottom and tucking it in before placing on the baking sheet. 

Conclusion:  I accidentally overbaked these, so they were dry.  They looked done at 20 minutes, but I was uncertain because of the directions, and I wanted to make sure they weren't too soft.  I intended to bake them just another 5 minutes at the lower temperature, but I got distracted and they were in there for about 10.  Nonetheless, they were very tasty, with a good wheaty flavor.  These were still quite large; I could have gotten 5 "slim" hamburger buns, or made 4 normal sized and one dinner roll.

Recipe:  Dan Lepard's Alehouse Rolls via The Caterer