With this recipe, I’ve moved away from the 1:2:3 formula that I usually play with and adapted my go-to burger bun recipe.

I searched online for a formula for replacing commercial yeast with sourdough starter, most frequently reading that for each sachet of yeast, one should use one cup of starter. Thing is, I use the starter by weight and wouldn’t like to guess at how to go about building the precise amount from the discard so that I end up with a cup after its post-feed stirring down. After a lot of googling, 240g seemed the most popular number being thrown around for the average weight of a cup of fed and stirred starter, so I went with that number, just for convenience.

The rest of the measurements were based on subtracting the volume of water and flour in the starter from the water and flour in the original recipe, then adjusting as I mixed to get a good dough. Also, I wanted to do the whole thing in one day (apart from feeding up the starter, which was done the day before then refrigerated overnight), so I increased the resting/proofing times from the original recipe but didn’t give it an overnight retard.

So there you have my somewhat-less-than-scientific approach to bread making. But it worked a treat.  🙂  Lots of oven spring, soft crust, nice crumb, rich flavour.

Makes 6-8 buns, depending on size

Ingredients

240g 100% hydration starter
120g warm water
50g milk
25g sugar
1 x 60g egg, lightly beaten, room temperature
400g all-purpose (plain) flour
7g salt
40g butter, room temperature

Directions

Mix the water and milk, to take the chill off the milk. Alternatively, warm the milk in the microwave.

Mix all ingredients together and knead for about 10 minutes, until you have a soft dough.

Scrape the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it rest in a warm place for 2 hours, stretching and folding every 40 minutes.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and gently cut into 6-8 equal portions (depending on the size you want), pull them into balls, pinching them tightly closed underneath and put them seam-side-down on an oiled baking tray. Cover them loosely with some plastic wrap lightly brushed with oil and let them proof in a warm place for about 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 230°C.

Turn oven down to 200°C, put a roasting pan with a couple of centimetres of cold water on the bottom shelf of the oven and put the buns on the centre shelf. Bake for 20 minutes with steam, then remove the roasting pan of water and bake another 5 minutes or so, until the tops are golden brown.

When done, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.