It’s sweet potato season and past time for another burger bun recipe. These ones are soft and fluffy, but sturdy enough to hold a generous, juicy filling without disintegrating. They’re my favorite at the moment.

Like nearly all my burger buns, I baked them in steel rings. The dough is stiff enough to freeform these, but we’re having a cold snap and I had to get the seedmat out to convince the lievito to rise. Plus, I like to be able to fit them all on the same baking sheet. It’s a tight fit, but with the rings they don’t bake together.

For the sweet potato burger buns you need:

• 200 lievito madre
• 120g warm milk
• 200g sweet potato
• 50g butter
• 1 egg
• 10g salt
• 400g all purpose flour
• a couple Tablespoons of sweet cream (for brushing)
• poppyseeds or sesame seeds (for sprinkling)

Start with cooking and mashing the sweet potato. You can bake it and then mash it up, boil it, microwave it, whatever you prefer. I coarsely grated it and cooked it with very little water. Took about 10 minutes. Then I drained the shreds and mashed them with the butter. Let the mash cool to about body temperature before you add it to the dough.

Dissolve the lievito madre in the warm milk, mix in the egg and cooled sweet potato mash. Once that’s all combined, add salt and flour and mix, then knead until the windowpane test is possible.

I know, I know. Every baking book under the sun tells you to add the egg and cold butter AFTER you passed the windowpane test. Problem is, you won’t have enough liquid to properly knead the dough without the egg and melted butter. I rarely have the patience to do it the right way, I usually just throw everything into the bowl and let the ankarsrum do the work. It takes some time though, so don’t get discouraged when your dough is still shaggy after 15 minutes. It’ll get there.

Like most of my burger buns, these don’t get a bulk rise.

I decided on 5 big buns (150g each) and 4 minis (about 70g each). Divide your dough, shape your buns and let them rise until at least doubled in size. That way they won’t rip when you bake them.

Pre-heat the oven including pizza stone or baking steel to 210°C / 410F when you think the buns are about ready.

Brush the risen buns with the sweet cream, then sprinkle with your seeds of choice.

Place the buns in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes. The core temperature should be around 92°C / 198F. Don’t worry if you catch them a bit later, just make sure you don’t burn them. The potato keeps them juicy, but there are limits to everything.

Get your buns on a wire rack to cool, then make burgers or freeze a few of them. For freezing, I wrap them in clingfilm before I place them in a freezer bag. That way I can get single buns out of the bags and either offer guests a variety or just make the burger I want for a quick dinner. I just let the buns thaw at room temperature, still wrapped. They’ll be just like freshly baked (and cooled) that way.