Egg-In-A-Hole Breakfast Burger On Cheddar Bacon Brioche

Cut a hole in a burger patty, fry an egg in it, and get an egg-in-a-hole breakfast burger! Served in a cheddar and bacon brioche bun. Make this stunning breakfast burger that has all the breakfast essentials - egg, bacon, cheese, and avocado. Stay full until dinner. 

Have you ever had egg in the hole - aka - egg in a basket - aka - sunshine toast (or what other name you may call it)? It's where you cut a hole in a slice of toast and fry an egg in the hole. This breakfast burger is the same concept. You end up with a runny egg in the middle of a burger patty and a beautiful and fun breakfast!

The concept is really quite simple. Form a burger patty, use a cookie cutter and take a hole out of it. Fry the burger on one side, flip. Crack the egg in the middle and cover the pan for a few minutes while the burger finishes cooking and the egg sets just enough.

This recipe is for you to make everything from scratch - the brioche burger bun and the burger patty. You can definitely take this egg-in-a-hole burger idea and use store bought burger buns and/or store bought burger patties. If you wanted to eat these for an early breakfast, using a store bought short cut would give you breakfast burgers quickly and easily.

But if you have the time, your taste buds will thank you for making these bacon brioche buns. I decided on these bacon brioche buns because I wanted to be able to see the egg-in-a-hole burger patty, and not cover it up with cheese and bacon. At the same time, I love a burger with cheese and bacon on top, and a breakfast really ought to have cheese and/or bacon involved. By mixing the bacon and cheese (and a touch of maple syrup) in the brioche buns, here's a complete breakfast burger without hiding the beautiful egg-in-a-hole .

The hardest part of making the bacon brioche buns is just waiting for them to rise. If you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, you can just let the machine do the kneading and you really have no excuse. If you don't own a stand mixer, think of it as an easy 15-minute arm workout. Most importantly though, is to be patient and let the buns get their full rise before baking.

I ran into a few problems the first time I tried to make these egg-in-a-hole burger patties, so here are my quick tips to help you get you through:

• When I cut the hole in the middle, my burger patties often fell apart. The way around this is to use an actual cookie cutter. Theoretically, a water glass would work, but I found the edges of a glass cup just weren't sharp or thin enough to cut through the meat cleanly. Using a cookie cutter, cut down in a quick motion. Once you have the cookie cutter at the bottom, give it a slight twist to make sure you've cut through the meat patty completely. Carefully reshape the "donut" meat patty if needed.
• I broke one of the "donut" meat patties the first time I tried to flip it. To avoid this, use a large spatula that is at least as wide as the "donut hole", and loosen the burger patty all around before you try to flip it.
• One of the eggs broke when I tried to take it off the pan. Eggs can be notoriously sticky, so make sure you use a nonstick pan or have enough grease on the pan. Carefully use a spatula to loosen the egg from the bottom of the pan to remove the egg-in-a-hole burger patty.

As I was poking around the Internet to see if this egg-in-a-hole burger has been done before, I came across this Cheeseburger Eggsplosion on Serious Eats. So I'm not the first to come up with this idea, but hopefully I've shared something new with you today! By the way, if you're in the UK, it's National Burger Day today! Happy burger eating!

Egg-In-A-Hole Breakfast Burger on Cheddar and Bacon Brioche

4.67 from 3 votes

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Serves: 12 burgers

Prep: 30 minutes mins

Cook: 1 hour hr

Total: 3 hours hrs 30 minutes mins

Ingredients

For the cheddar and bacon brioche (makes 8-12 burger buns)

• 8 slices bacon (240 grams) - plus 1 tablespoon reserved bacon fat from cooking
• 1 tablespoon quick rise yeast
• ½ cup milk - warmed
• 3 ¼ cup bread flour - plus extra as needed
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 5 medium eggs
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• ½ cup cheddar cheese - grated
• ½ cup parmesan cheese -grated
• 1 tablespoon butter - melted (to brush on the buns)
• poppy seeds - optional

For the egg-in-a-hole burger patties (makes 4 patties) (double or triple the recipe as desired)

• 1 pound ground beef (minced beef)
• salt and pepper - to taste
• 4 medium eggs

To serve

• avocado - as desired
• mayonnaise and ketchup - to taste

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Make the cheddar and bacon brioche

• In a large frying pan, cook the bacon until crisp. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat. Allow to cool, then chop into pieces no larger than 1-cm x 1-cm.
• In a small bowl, mix the yeast and the milk together. Let sit for 5 minutes.
• In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Make a well in the middle and add in the eggs, maple syrup and yeast mixture. Mix everything together until a dough forms, about 5 minutes. You can do this by hand or using the dough hook on a stand mixer.
• Add in the bacon and cheeses. Continue kneading for about 10 more minutes, until the dough is smooth and pliable. If kneading by hand, pour the dough out onto a silicon mat. If the dough is too wet, add in flour 1 tablespoon at a time. The dough will be sticky, but you should be able to handle it.
• Transfer the dough into a large bowl. Cover and let rest until the dough has doubled in size, about 1 to 1 ½ hours (depending on the temperature of your kitchen).
• When the dough is ready, pour it out of the bowl onto a floured surface. Fold the dough twice. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces (for thicker buns) or 12 equal pieces (for thinner buns). In the photos above, I divided it into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a loose ball and flatten into a disk about 2-cm tall. Set the disks on a floured baking tray and allow to rest for 20 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 400°F/205°C. Bake the buns for 25 minutes. Immediately after you remove the buns from the oven, brush on the butter and sprinkle on the poppy seeds.

Make the burger patties

• Mix the ground beef with salt and pepper. Divide the meat into three equal pieces. Flatten each piece into a disk about 2-cm thick. Using a round cookie cutter, cut out the middle of each patty. Take the cut outs and form a fourth burger patty. Using a round cookie cutter, cut out the middle of the last patty. You can use the last cut out for a mini slider.

Grill the burger patties

• Add oil into a medium frying pan and heat on medium heat. Carefully transfer the burger patties onto the pan. Cook for 2 minutes then flip over. As soon as you flip it over, crack an egg into the hole in the burger. Depending on the size of the hole and the size of your egg, the egg white may spill out onto the top of the burger. It's fine if that happens - simply scrape it off the burger using a spatula as it cooks. Cover the frying pan and cook for an additional 3 minutes.
• Carefully transfer the burger patty off the pan, being careful not to break the yolk. Depending on the size of your pan, you may need to cook the burger patties in batches.

Serve the burgers

• Slice each bacon brioche bun in half. Layer avocado slices on the bottom half. Top with the burger patty. If desired, spread mayonnaise and ketchup to the top bun. Close the burger.

Course: Meats, Savory

Author: The Worktop

Cal : 381kcal

Note: Nutrition information is a rough estimate.

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The beautiful blue stoneware plates are from Minor Goods.