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International A-Z: Chinese Steamed Buns

Story location: Home / food_and_drink / a_to_z /
29/May/2017

It has been far too long since I posted my last new recipe. I decided to try a sweet steamed bun recipe and tried to find something suitable on the web. I avoided any American recipes which mostly used mixture of 'all purpose' and 'cake flour' and found a recipe taken from a Ken Hom book. I decided to use half the quantities for my initial attempt.

For the sweet filling, I found a recipe for baked Honey Buns which sounded good. This recipe called for dessicated coconut which had been powdered in a food processor. Since we have coconut flour, I tried using that.

Since coconut flour abosrbs a lot of moisture during cooking, I reduced the amount (¾ of a cup instead of a full cup of dessicated) but the first test run came out too dry. I removed some of the mixture, added extra honey and oil and the egg white, to make the mixture softer and wetter, but the final version was still a bit too dry inside. The recipe for the filling is still only approximate since I don't know how much flour, honey or coconut oil ended up in the final mixture.

Making the dough

Put:

  • 90ml warm water
  • 1 tsp yeast
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp melted coconut oil
  • 190g plain flour

in a mixing bowl. Mix to a dough, knead for a few minutes then leave to rest while preparing the filling.

Mixing the filling

Mix together:

  • ½ a cup of coconut flour
  • 6 tbsp honey
  • 4 tbsp melted coconut oil
  • 1 egg, beaten

The resulting mixture should be soft and slightly wet. This actually makes more than you need for the amount of dough.

Chinese Steamed Buns

Assembling and cooking

I divided the dough into 6 pieces, flattening them out and placing about a tablespoon of the filling in the middle of eIach. After folding the dough up and crimping to seal the top, I sat each bun onto a square of baking paper.

I used our Instant Pot to cook the buns. To make sure it was warmed up and ready, I poured boiling water into the bottom of the pot and pressed the sautee button while the buns rested and rose for about half an hour.

I cooked the buns using the Steam setting at low pressure for 15 minutes.

Chinese Steamed Buns with the coconut honey filling

The bun texture came out ok and the filling tasted good. Apart from the filling going a bit dry (which I mentioned earlier), the recipe worked well.