Red bean paste buns again

For this week’s bread-and-tea I want to make bean-paste bao again.  I already posted the recipe I used for making the koshi-an (sweet red-bean paste) and a recipe for the bao dough, so this post will just have an updated recipe for the dough.

I made the koshi-an tonight, and it looks and tastes like it should, though the azuki beans are probably getting dried out, as it took about 8 hours of simmering to get them soft enough to push through the food mill.  I’m always amazed how the bean paste looks so grey and crumbly after the water is squeezed out, and adding the sugar makes it even paler and drier-looking, but heating and stirring makes it shine with the lovely red-bean-paste color.

For the bao, I am still adapting the recipe from Mai Leung’s Dim Sum and Other Chinese Street Food. I don’t have cake flour or pastry flour in the house, but I do have all-purpose flour. I did once try cutting all-purpose flour with sweet rice flour, but the results were terrible, so this time I’ll just try using straight al-purpose flour.

Furthermore, our household has gone vegan for January (veganuary), so I won’t use lard or butter.  I have a choice of a vegetable shortening made from red palm oil and coconut oil or pure coconut oil. Since I think that the palm oil has worse ecological impact than coconut oil, I’ll try the pure coconut oil this time.  It shouldn’t matter if it imparts a bit of coconut flavor to the dough, since I’m using a sweet filling.

Step 1:

1 tsp yeast
¼ cup lukewarm water
½ cup sifted all-purpose flour

Mix together and proof for fifteen minutes.

Step 2:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
½ cup powdered sugar
½ cup warm water

Mix with the sponge from step 1 and let rise for 2 hours (until doubled).

Step 3:

1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon coconut oil
¼ cup slightly warm water

In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour and baking powder, then knead with the dough from Step 2, gradually adding the coconut oil and water. The dough was very dry, so I added an extra two teaspoons of water.  The dough was still rather dry, but seemed kneadable. 

Roll the dough into a sausage shape about 1½ inches in diameter, cut into 12 equal pieces and roll each one into a ball. Keep covered with a damp towel. Let rise until more than doubled (about 3.5 hours). I did the rising after the rolling into balls, rather than before, this time.

Cut 12 3-inch squares of waxed paper.  Roll each ball into a circle about 2½ inches in diameter, but no thinner than ¼” thick. (Using my cookie sticks!) Pinch the outer edges to be a little thinner. Wet the outermost ½” of edges of the circle with a wet fingertip, to encourage sealing.

Put about 1 tablespoon of filling in the center of the circle, then pull up the edges and pinch and twist them to seal. Put the bun flat-side-down on a waxed paper square. Let the buns rise for 30 minutes before steaming.

Keep the buns at least ½ inch apart in the steamer, and steam for 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Steamed buns can be frozen and thawed, then re-steamed.

21 Jan 2022: Here are the photos of the bao that I promised yesterday—about 5 of the 12 seem to have sealed ok, so I need to either make the dough wetter or do something to improve my technique. (Colored text above are modifications to the post since yesterday.)

The 12 bao in the bamboo steamer.

The five that did not open up too much on a black platter.