
We were making burgers during the weekend. I finally got around to making my own burger buns. I have been wanting to make a brioche burger buns after hearing it so many times on food network shows. The neighbourhood bakeries here do not make/sell any nice burger buns that I always see on television. I can drop by those high end bakeries in town but it’s too troublesome and pricey.
Anyway,I had such a horror making the buns at first. I had so much trouble with activating the active dry yeast in milk! It just didn’t bloom and I wasted 2 sachets of the yeast! I’ve always used instant yeast for breads actually but decided to try active dry yeast for this one. I’m not sure what went wrong but it’s definitely not the expiry date. Maybe The temperature of the milk but I did use a thermometer and waited 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes until I got really tired of waiting.
I gave up and luckily I had my last packet of instant yeast. I used this site: http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/yeast_converter.html to gauge how much instant yeast to use.
The recipe required quite an amount of butter that it got me worried. Cos my dough ended up being so soft but that’s also because the butter was super soft after being left out of the fridge for almost an hour.
I decided to wait to see if it rise. But somewhere at the back of my mind, they were thoughts of dumping the whole thing cos it looked very icky and not smooth like a usual bread dough. Maybe cos I added the milk too late cos I almost forgot about it. Thank god, I waited cause if I didn’t I wouldn’t have had any delicious doughnuts to eat the next day! Yummeh!
Initially the doughnuts were supposed to be Salted Caramel Filled Doughnuts but I used the wrong type of “brown sugar” and the molasses overpowered the salted caramel in the pastry cream. So, I got my Whipped Molasses Filled Doughnuts in the end which was super tasty too!

WHIPPED MOLASSES FILLED DOUGHNUT
Brioche Dough (adapted from Flour Arrangements)
- 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole milk
- 1½ teaspoons instant yeast
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- 2 cups bread flour
- ¾ cups (1½ sticks or ~175g) unsalted butter, softened
Whipped Molasses Filling (adapted from addmorebutter.com)
- 110g caster sugar
- 40ml water
- large pinch of salt
- 250ml milk
- 3 egg yolks
- 35g molasses sugar/dark brown sugar
- 20g cornflour
- 20g unsalted butter
- 300ml double cream
Doughnuts
- Vegetable oil for frying
- 1/2 cup caster sugar and
- 1 tsp Cinammon powder (optional)
Making the brioche dough
- Lightly beat three of the eggs and milk in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Combine all purpose flour, sugar, salt and yeast together. Add the egg mixture. Stir on low speed with the paddle attachment until combined.
- Add bread flour, ½ cup at a time, mixing until well combined, about 5 minutes. Switch to the dough hook and knead on medium speed until a smooth and elastic dough clears the sides of the bowl, about 7 to 10 minutes. Add butter a tablespoon at a time, vigorously kneading with the mixer until all the butter is completely incorporated and the dough becomes smooth once again. (It’s okay if your dough is not so smooth)
- Place the dough in a large, generously buttered bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, about 1½ -2 hours.
- Turn out the dough, punch it down, and knead it briefly, using a small amount of flour to prevent sticking if needed. ( I knead the dough by hand for at least 8-10 minutes till smooth since my initial dough was not smooth at all). Return the dough to the re-buttered bowl and refrigerate, covered, for 4 to 12 hours to proof.
- In the meantime, make you Whipped Molasses Filling.
Making the Molasses Pastry Cream Filling
- Place the caster sugar and water into a small saucepan over high heat.
- While the sugar is bubbling away for the caramel, place the milk into another saucepan and begin to warm.
- Watch the sugar syrup as it bubbles, swirling the pan every now and again to make sure that it cooks evenly. After a few minutes, the sugar should have become caramel. The colour should be golden brown.
- Make sure that the milk is nearly boiling and pour a small amount into the caramel off the heat. Be careful as the caramel will bubble violently. Once the bubbles die down, continue to add the rest of the milk. Stir the caramel milk over low heat, making sure that all the caramel pieces have dissolved.
- In a small bowl, mix together the egg yolks, dark brown sugar and cornflour. Pour over a small amount of the hot caramel milk and whisk into the egg yolks. Add the rest of the milk, stir and pour everything back into the pan to make your caramel pastry cream.
- Place the pan over medium heat and begin to cook the pastry cream. Slowly whisk the mixture until it starts to thicken. As soon as the pastry cream has thickened and begins to bubble, whisk very quickly on the heat to continue to cook out the cornflour; making sure it doesn’t burn. Once the pastry cream starts to bubble; cook it out for 2-3 minutes. Take off of the heat and whisk in the butter.
- Spoon into a bowl. Cover the surface with cling film and refrigerate overnight or at least 2 hrs or until set like jelly.
Making the Doughnuts
- Take your brioche dough out of the fridge and line two baking trays with baking parchment ready for your cut doughnuts.
- Flour you work surface and tip the dough out onto it. Using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to ½ cm thick. Using a floured 2 inch cutter, cut out your doughnuts and place onto the prepared baking trays; leaving 1½ inches between each. Re-roll any scraps and cut out more doughnuts. Once all the doughnuts are cut, cover them with a kitchen cloth and leave to prove for 1½ – 2 hours or until doubled in size.
- When you’re ready to start frying your doughnuts, fill a large saucepan 2-3 inches deep with vegetable oil. Place over medium heat until the oil reaches 180°C. Get a shallow dish ready with some caster sugar and cinammon mix to drop your doughnuts into and a plate to set your sugared doughnuts on.
- Carefully pick up your doughnuts and drop in 2-3 at a time into the hot oil. Leave to cook on one side for a minute or two, then turn them over using a slotted spoon and cook on the other side for another minute until both sides are golden brown. (It’s really fascinating to watch the doughnut puff up while frying!) Do adjust the temperature of your oil accordingly; if it gets too hot, lower the temperature as your doughnuts may cook too quickly on the outside and remain raw in the centre.
- Once the doughnut is golden and cooked to perfection, take them out of the oil and I let is sit on a sieve layered with a bowl underneath so that the excess oil may drip off as the doughnut cools slightly. After a minute or 2, I rolled the hot doughnuts around the bowl of the cinnamon sugar mixture making sure it is coated all around. Move them onto another plate, making room for the next doughnuts.
- Once all the doughnuts are cooked, coated and cooled you can start to assemble.
Assembling the Doughnuts
- After your doughnuts are cool enough to handle, whipped the cold whipped cream until stiff peaks.
- Fold in the Molasses Filling into the whipped cream until it become a nice even mixture.
- Prepare a piping bag with Wilton Tip 230 (do use a coupler so that the tip stays in place).
- Pipe as much filling into the cooled doughnuts.