Home-made Big Mac

Big Mac from Scratch

So today I wanna make a big mac because. As my cola video is a testament to I clearly have a problem with making things that I could easily buy, but I do have to say this was a really fun project and it came out just as good if not better than the infamous burger.

Detailed Instructions:

Meat Preparation



So the first thing we need to prep is the meat, I am using some preground meat which has a rather high-fat percentage of 20%.  I really want this to be as close as possible to the real thing so I am going to use this ring, it’s going to be the center of everything. The regular big mac is 3.75 inches in diameter, and I have this one that is 4 inches in diameter. So, in the end, I will have a slightly bigger mac. 

patties ready for the freezer

 I really want the patties to be similar to the ones you get, so I am going to weigh out the amount of meat to get the right thickness, a regular pattie for the big mac weighs 1.6 oz or 45 grams, adjusting the amount for our slightly larger diameter, we need a patty that weighs 1.9 oz or 54 grams. 

After divvying up all this meat, it’s time to form the patties. Using a baking tray with some parchment liner, I am using the form I am going to push the meat down with my fingers into the ring, trying to get as uniform of a layer of meat as possible, really making sure to get into the edges, making sure there aren’t any gaps and really trying to just push down, and not ‘smear’ the meat. Once the pattie has been pushed in, we can pull the form off, and just tamp down the edges with the finger. I repeated this process for all the patties, I added some salt to the patties and then placed the whole thing in the freezer to freeze. Freezing the patties is the trick to get them to be like those fast-food style burgers. I let this freeze overnight

Making the Buns

The next morning I started on the bun. I am going to use a basic hamburger bun dough here,

3.5 cups (418 grams) of flour, 1/4 cup or 50 grams of granulated sugar, 1.25 teaspoons (7 grams) of salt, packet or 7 grams of yeast, 28 grams of melted butter, and we need a little less than a cup or about 200 grams of warm water and one egg.

Mix this all up until it starts to come together into a smooth ball, letting this knead for about 4 minutes. Once it is all smooth and shiny, go ahead and pour this out into a clean bowl and we are going to let this proof for 2 hours in a warm environment.  You can cover yours with a damp towel or cling film so that the top doesn’t harden, but I wanted to get this super cool shot of it proofing so I left mine uncovered in my new fancy-schmancy oven, which was set to proof at 80 F or 27.7 c for 2 hours or until it puffs up like this.

Once it’s proofed we can go ahead and pour out our dough, lightly deflating and start dividing it up. Now how big is going to be highly dependant on how large the cooking ring you are are using is. For me, I had to do a lot of guessing here, and this is arguably a point in which I did wrong, but after some experimenting, for a 4 inch round cylinder like I have here, I would recommend using a bun that is between 150 and 175 grams, or between 5 and 6 ozs. 

This is a lot of dough for one bun, but for our slightly bigger mac, we need the bun coverage. In my case, I baked a bun that was 200 grams or about 7 ozs which was far too big as we will see, and one that was 100 grams, and was too small, and one that was 125 grams which was close, but still not big enough. We’ll get to my bun mistakes in a minute

Once divided up, roll them into balls, and now would be the perfect time to add some sesame seeds. We are going to let these balls puff up a little which should take between 30 mins and an hour. In the meantime it’s not a bad idea to start preheating your oven to 375f or 190 c. 

Dough going into the ring form

Before baking we need to generously lubricate the inside of the ring using some vegetable oil, and once the dough balls are ready go ahead and place one inside of the ring on a tray and bake for 20 minutes. Since I only have one baking ring, I had to go one at a time here. After 20 minutes we can see my 200-gram bun being too large, the 100 too small, and the 125 too small as well. Now I opted to cheat a little here and Frankenstein these buns taking the nicely formed top from the 200-gram bun and place it on top of the 125-gram bun. 

Sauce

The ‘secret sauce’

Now that we have the buns out of the way, we can move onto the other ingredients, let’s start by making the sauce. I am using ½ a cup of mayonnaise, 1/8th of a cup of relish 1 tablespoon of yellow mustard, a few dashes of paprika, one dash of onion powder, one dash of garlic powder, and one teaspoon of apple cider or red wine vinegar. Give this a mix and put it into the fridge for later.

Additionally, we need some diced onions. We also need some pickles, and unfortunately, I grabbed the wrong slice of pickles from the store without realizing and it’s a whole faff to get back, so I am gonna have square pickles on my big mac. 

Making the Burgers

The fried patties

With that all done, its a matter of grilling up the burgers. Heat up a pan or griddle over medium-high heat and let the pan come up to heat. If you wanna toast the buns, this is a good time to do so. Next, we are gonna pull out our burgers from the freezer and grill em up. Because they are so small they grill up quickly, one could almost say they are a ‘fast food’.

I cooked 4 burgers and I am ready to build the big mac.

Start with the base bun, add sauce, then onions then lettuce, then cheese, then the burger, wait umm I meant square pickles then cheese then burger than bun then repeat the entire process and add a top bun and you bam.

This burger is done. Now how did it taste, almost exactly like a big mac, the bun, in my opinion, was actually a little better, a little more substantial, but flavorwise it was a big mac. I hope you enjoyed this recipe.

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Condensed Recipe:

Meat:

• For a 4 inch [~10 cm] Diameter ~54 grams of ground meat 

Burger Bun Recipe:

• 3.5 cups or 418 grams of all-purpose flour

• ¼ cup or 50 grams of granulated sugar

• 1.25 teaspoons or 7 grams of salt

• 1 egg

• 1 packet or 7 grams

• 28 grams of melted butter

• A little less than a cup or about 200 grams of warm water.

Secret Sauce

• ½ cup of mayo

• ⅛ cup of relish

• 2 dashes of paprika

• 1 dash onion powder

• 1 dash garlic powder

• 1 teaspoon of cider or red wine vinegar

Additional ingredients:

• Chopped onions

• Chopped lettuce

Instructions:

1. Using a ring form, push the ground meat into a thin disk, and place into freezer,

2. Mix bun ingredients all together, knead and proof for 2 hours.

3. Bake Bread in a 350F (190c) oven for 30 minutes.

4. Mix up ingredients to make ‘secret sauce’.

5. Fry burgers until completely cooked.

6. Assemble

Enjoy!