The Fast Food Chain That Prides Itself On Freshly Toasted Sesame Seed Buns
Fast food chains adopt signature traits small and large to differentiate themselves from other quick, cheap places to get a burger and fries. For instance, McDonald's fries contain a touch of "natural beef flavor", Wendy's has square burger patties, and Burger King does actually flame-grill or flame-broil Whoppers. But a smaller distinguishing trait of Burger King's can often go overlooked: the toasted buns.
Toasting the bread is a simple way to improve almost any sandwich. At Burger King, the buns are delivered from various bakeries and toasted to order, ensuring warm and gently browned bread that reviewers find is generally crispier than other fast food bun options.
The Burger King website does not specify how fresh its buns are, only that they are baked off-site and delivered daily to the restaurants before being toasted for each sandwich. Outside buns are a common practice for the fast food industry, but toasting them is less common — and there are reasons that Burger King takes this extra step.
Why does Burger King toast its sesame seed buns?
People have a lot of opinions on the ideal burger bun, including some people saying that it doesn't really matter at all. But for Burger King, it actually does. Not only are the toasted buns an aesthetic and flavorful difference between it and much of the competition, but the stiffening of the buns lends extra support for the substantial weight of a fully-loaded Whopper.
Despite this subtly important role played by Burger King's toasted sesame seed buns, the main star of the sandwich is the burger. One can enjoy the toasty bun but the main attraction tends to be the flame-broiled burger, which the bun complements nicely.
Unfortunately, some Burger King locations still use heat lamps to keep product warm while it waits for customers to make a purchase. This does, obviously, keep the food warm, but at the cost of continuing to gently cook the completed sandwich. After enough time it can lead to rubbery meat and dry, hard buns. The toasted bread is best experienced on a freshly-made Burger King sandwich.