Olivia Potts

How to make your own burger buns

A delicious addition to a bank holiday barbecue

  • From Spectator Life

Do you ever find yourself holding forth on a topic you hadn’t realised you cared about? You know, someone asks you an innocuous question in passing about the merits of slow cookers, or the best way to grow cabbages, and before you know it, 20 minutes has passed and you’re still grandstanding.

There are a few topics that have crept up on me like this during my life: I have found out that I feel extremely strongly about pyjamas (pro), low-calorie cooking spray (anti) and the TV show Stars in their Eyes. And, it turns out, burger buns. I truly didn’t believe I had anything approaching an opinion on burger buns. But the moment I turned my mind to it, I realised that, to the contrary, I had very strong opinions on this apparently benign subject.

So what is required of a burger bun? Burger buns should be richer than the normal bread buns that you’d use for a cheese or ham sandwich: they’re contending with a lot of different fillings and need to be able to hold their own against the fat, acid and salt.

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Olivia Potts
Written by
Olivia Potts
Olivia Potts is a former criminal barrister who retrained as a pastry chef. She co-hosts The Spectator’s Table Talk podcast and writes Spectator Life's The Vintage Chef column. A chef and food writer, she was winner of the Fortnum and Mason's debut food book award in 2020 for her memoir A Half Baked Idea.

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