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Homemade Brioche Buns

My favorite recipe for big fluffy Homemade Brioche Buns! These are the perfect vehicle for all your burgers and sandwiches. Making your own sandwich buns at home is really easy. Read on and find out how. 
Sloppy Joes on Homemade Brioche Buns

Don’t worry. I’m going to tell you alllll about those Sloppy Joes tomorrow. Today we are discussing one of my favorite things: CARBS. More specifically carbs that make great sandwiches. These Homemade Brioche Buns are OUTSTANDING. Soft and chewy. Great with poppy seeds or sesame seeds or just brushed with butter. We love them piled with sliced ham, topped with burgers, or stuffed with Sloppy Joes.

Let’s talk about making them!

Sometimes making things like homemade burger buns can seem sort of daunting. But I promise this recipe will not steer you wrong. I’ve been using it since about 2010 and never really wanted to publish it because I feel like there are a bajillion other homemade bun recipes out there.

Then a friend of mine shared her results with a recipe she’d tried. She loved them, but she wasn’t super confident about baking with yeast, so she followed the instructions to the letter and then wondered what went wrong.

Easy Homemade Brioche Burger Buns

Baking with yeast is a tiny bit different than just plain baking because it’s not an exact science. The conditions in your house will change the results a little bit so you have to pay attention to what’s going on. Beyond that it is EASY. I swear it.

For example — we live in North Carolina. And in the summer? It is like being inside a big giant proofing oven unless the air conditioner is on major full blast. So my first rise only takes about 45 minutes. The second rise only 30 or 35. If you live in a drier, cooler climate, your first rise could take up to an hour. Maybe an hour and 15 minutes. What you’re looking for after kneading the dough is that it has doubled in size.

Homemade Brioche Burger Bun Recipe

One trick I use to sort of speed the rise process along is to preheat my oven when I am making the dough. Sort of like with my One Hour Crusty Dinner Loaf, you just put your bowl of kneaded dough on the stove top and cover with a towel.

The second rise is THE MOST important one though. Once you have divided the dough into 8 little balls, you want to let them get rise to just slightly smaller than your finished buns will be. This is the rise that will take you from delicious beautiful rolls to delicious Frankenstein rolls.

Brioche Bun Recipe From Scratch

You’ve got this!

Homemade Brioche Buns
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
This Easy Homemade Brioche Bun Recipe will set off all your burgers and sandwiches! Note that the prep time includes time for 2 rises.
Author:
Serves: 8 buns
Ingredients
  • 1 cup warm water (check the label on your yeast for temperature recommendations)
  • 3 tablespoons milk
  • 2 teaspoons instant dry yeast
  • 2½ teaspoons sugar
  • 3 cups bread flour
  • ⅓ cup all purpose flour
  • 1½ teaspoons salt
  • 1 egg + another for the egg wash
  • sesame seeds or poppy seeds if you want them
Instructions
  1. Whisk together the water, milk, yeast, and sugar. Let it sit until it looks foamy - about 5 mins. While it sits, whisk together the flours and salt in a large bowl and beat the egg.
  2. Pour the liquid and beaten egg into the flour and fold it in until it mostly comes together. I use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon.
  3. Turn the dough out onto a very well floured surface and knead it until smooth - 6 to 8 mins. You can keep adding flour as you go if it feels too sticky, but you don't wanna make it tough. When the dough forms a nice smooth and slightly tacky ball, put it back in the bowl and cover with a towel.
  4. Put the bowl in a warm place and let it rise until it has doubled in size. In the summer it will be less time! I like to just turn the oven on and put the bowl on top of the stove.
  5. Line a baking sheet with parchment or you can just lightly grease it. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces and place them 2 or 3 inches apart. Lightly cover them with a towel, or I like to spray a tiny bit of nonstick spray on plastic wrap and cover them with that. Put them back in the warm place and let them rise again until they are ALMOST the size you want them to be.
  6. While they rise preheat the oven to 400. Put a pan on the bottom oven rack with about an inch of water in it.
  7. Make a quick egg wash with the remaining egg and a little water (about a tablespoon). Gently brush the tops with the egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for 15 minutes, turning the pan halfway through.

Sloppy Joes on Homemade Buns
Rate this recipe:  

Caitlin Piper

Monday 24th of April 2023

Mine were dense. Did not come out like the pic

Krystle

Wednesday 6th of January 2021

The Flavor of this was really good but they did seem to be a bit dense? I saw a comment about the egg quantity? Where you ever able to figure out if the right amount was in the recipe above? I am going to try again to see if I missed something somewhere because overall they were still really good!

Krystle

Thursday 21st of January 2021

@Heather Tullos, thats okay! no worries! I am going to try again today with an extra egg yolk and see if it helps any! Thanks so much for getting back in touch! :)

Heather Tullos

Wednesday 6th of January 2021

Krystle I think a measurement went wonky somewhere when I converted this to a new printable format and I have not been able to retest! (Testing means me making buns for a whole day lol). I am so sorry! I have your email and will try to figure this one out ASAP!

Jane

Sunday 21st of June 2020

With Covid I am having a hard time finding Bread flour. Can I just use All Purpose?

Heather Tullos

Thursday 25th of June 2020

The proteins are different so you will not get the same result. You can try it though!

Gabriella Calabro

Sunday 24th of May 2020

I use a lot of your recipes and they are great. I’ve tried this one but my buns are a little on the heavy side, did I something wrong? Thank you Gabriella

Gabriella Calabro

Monday 31st of August 2020

@Heather Tullos, Did you ever make the buns to see what went wrong ?

Gabriella Calabro

Tuesday 26th of May 2020

@Heather Tullos, ok, thanks.

Heather Tullos

Tuesday 26th of May 2020

You know I made this again yesterday and it turned out differently than they have in the past! Definitely heavier. I think when I transferred the recipe to the new printable version something got lost in the translation. I need to remake this one this week and see what's happening with it - I think I might be missing an egg. It seemed not brioche-ey enough. I will let you know as soon as I have a minute ton play with it!