Shake Shack style Burgers at Home

With all of us settling in for the long haul, and slowly coming to terms with the fact that this is probably going to be our reality for the next few months (if not the year), everyone’s finding different ways to distract themselves. Many of my friends on Instagram have been baking up project bakes and recipes, and the burger and burger bun combo has been one of the most popular ones!

And being a burger lover myself, I too wanted to get on the burger bandwagon. In the gourmet thick burger vs crispy thin smash burgers, I’m firmly in the smash burger camp, and Shake Shack does THE BEST.

I’ve also been binge watching Bon Appetit and NYT Cooking YouTube channels, so imagine my glee when I realised that Carla Lalli Music (the goddess) shared her smash burger video! She says that Shake Shack burgers MUST be on a potato bun, so… the obvious thing to do is make potato buns, right? Right.

I’m going to share my potato bun recipe here, as well as a quick step by step to make your own smash burgers at home. OR for those of you who want a visual, go watch Carla’s video on YouTube, you won’t regret it.

Potato Buns

Makes 8 buns

• 1/2 cup of boiled and mashed potatoes

• 1 packet/10g/2 tsp of instant yeast

• 1 tsp of caster sugar

• 1 tsp of salt

• 1 cup/240ml of whole milk, lukewarm

• 1 egg

• 60g/ 1/4 cup softened butter

• 3 cups all purpose flour

1. Place the warm mashed/riced potatoes in the bowl of your stand mixer, add the yeast, sugar, salt, milk, egg and butter to the bowl and stir to mix

1. Add the flour to the bowl and use the dough hook attachment to stir it in and gently knead for 10 mins

1. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean dish towel, then let it rise for 1 and a half hours

1. Line a large baking sheet with paper, divide the dough into 8 and shape into a ball then place them evenly apart on the sheet. Let this rise for another hour

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan on, brush the tops of the buns lightly with an egg wash, and top if you want to with sesame seeds (I used Trader Joe’s Everything But The Bagel seasoning cos I have it on hand). When ready, bake the buns for 15 mins or until the tops are golden. Remove from the oven, then let them cool slightly on the pan then all the way on a wire rack

Burger Not-So-Secret Sauce

• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tsp ketchup
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 1/5 tsp jalapeño pickling juice
• 1/4 tsp each of paprika, garlic powder & onion powder

Mix all the ingredients up in a bowl for slathering onto burger buns later

Smash Burgers

• 500g minced beef, fatty if possible
• Salt and pepper

Roughly divide the beef into 4 and shape into 4 ball-ish mounds, crack some salt and pepper on top

Heat a cast iron skillet over a medium sized flame, then flip the beef balls seasoned side down onto the hot pan and smash with a spatula (I use Carla’s 2 spatula method – 1 to flatten, 1 to use the handle to push down and flatten). Season the top with salt and pepper then let it cook for a bit

When the burger is cooked and lovely browned on one side, flip the burger and top with a cheese slice (don’t use anything fancy here)

Once cooked, place directly on top of the toasted bun and secret sauce, top with red onion slices or tomatoes and lettuce, then close the burger and enjoy!