Teff Burger Bun

Teff Buns

Finding a calling

I've grown up surrounded by food.  My mom owns a restaurant in Helena, MT that I was cajoled into working at from a young age.  One of my first jobs besides that was Baskin Robbins, which I promptly got fired from for allowing all my friends to come in after hours to eat free ice cream.  After that, I dabbled in care giving for the developmentally disabled, a job I was extremely under qualified for which consisted of me smoking two packs of cigarettes a day in my 81 Honda between clients.  I ended up quitting less than a year later by putting myself on call and never answering my phone.

This is how I looked.  Just kidding, I looked like a stupid teenager.

Bread Baking

After that, I decided to try my hand at working in a bakery.  There was an old school whole grain bakery that my hippy mom had worked at when she first moved to town.  It became kind of a coming of age employment in our family.  My brother, two sisters, cousin and myself all worked there at some point.  At first, I was only interested in getting drunk on the roof with the two ne'er do wells that were training me(just kidding, they are great people.  We were shitty workers then though).  However, after getting switched to the 3 a.m baking shift, I had little time for anything outside of work besides sleeping.  I learned all about sourdough starters and preferments as well as taking dough to the last second before popping it in the oven to get the right amount of jump from the hungry yeast.  I finally started to find passion in my work.

You know you want to eat all of that

Culinary School

After years of working in food service, waiting tables for entitled turds, short order cooking, bread and pastry baking and a short stint of bartending, I decided it was time to go to culinary school.  I've found myself 600 miles away from my hometown, working as a pantry cook at a french bistro and thrown into a whirlwind of blooming food culture.  About halfway through school, I started getting severe stomach pains every time I ate.  I found out I'm celiac and can't consume any gluten which includes wheat, barley, spelt, kamut fucking everything that I liked to bake with as well as hidden additives in all the tastiest processed foods.  After a couple months of being depressed and feeling sorry for myself, I decided to make the best of it and use it as a way to become more creative in the kitchen.  

This is the face of someone who no longer has to worry about constant rot gut

Which brings us to

Teff is an awesome grain used primarily in the making of Injera, and Ethiopian flatbread.  I started reading about it while researching a food culture for my communications class.  Teff is gluten free and has a really nice nutty graham flavor.  I've been using lately to bake gluten free at home.  One of the shittiest things about being celiac is I can't ever get a good burger bun at places that have great burgers and don't even get me started on tepid, flaccid lettuce wrapped burgers.  I'll puke right in your face.  The other night, I found myself craving a burger like nobody's business and ended up staying up until 2 in the morning getting all the components together, because I'm stubborn and like to make everything from scratch.  

I made bread and butter pickles, a patty made from Montana beef(courtesy of my mom's care packages), pickled mustard seed and slathered it in some homemade fry sauce.  I'm just going to go over the bun recipe today and will show you some of my other tricks later.  Wink.

The recipe for the gluten free teff bun is based on the America's Test Kitchen recipe for gluten free dinner rolls.  I recommend using their flour mixture, but any gluten free mix can be substituted in.  These are a little more crumbly than regular buns and I'm hoping to monkey with the recipe a little more, but here's a basic bun recipe for those craving a little burger in their lives.

A grain that doesn't make me feel like dying

Gluten Free Teff Buns

1 1/3 cups warm whole milk
2 tsp. vinegar or lemon juice
2 eggs, plus 1 large yolk
10 oz. Gluten Free Flour Blend
5 oz. Teff Flour
2 Tbsp. psyllium husk powder
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 1/4 tsp rapid-rise yeast
2 tsp. gluten free baking powder
Salt
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces and softened
Fleur de Sel or Sesame Seeds(optional)

1.  Spray 9 inch round cake pan or silpat with vegetable oil.  Whisk warm milk, juice or vinegar and 1 egg plus yolk in a bowl.  combine dry ingredients, 1 1/2 tsp salt and yeast in a standing mixer.  Add wet mixture gradually and let dough come together, scraping down bowl as needed.  Ad butter, increase speed and beat until uniform.

2.  Roll 1/3 cup of dough at a time and arrange rolls in pan(1 in center, 7 spaced evenly on the outside) or place on silpat using wet hands to flatten a little.   Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size(1 hour)

3.   Adjust oven rack to middle and heat oven to 375 degrees.  Beat egg, 1 tsp of water and a pinch of salt.  brush rolls with egg wash, sprinkle with Fleur de Sel or sesame seeds and bake until golden brown, 35-40 minutes, rotating halfway through baking.

4.  Allow rolls to cool in pan for ten minutes then invert onto rack.

5.  Put delicious burgery things on them and eat them as quick as possible.

A nice, wheat bread like crumb without any of the shitty(pardon my pun) side effects