Red Bean Bun!

Yeah, I know, I'm posting food instead of crafts.  No, you aren't linked to a wrong blog.  Some of my friends asked if I can share some of the recipes with them and after pondering for a loooooong time, I decided to do it here on my blog.  However, I am NOT a professional, so everything I post here is based on others' recipes or my own trial and error, so pardon me if I made any errors or stupid mistakes!

There is a Thai store here where I'm living which I really like to go.  It's like hunting for treasures everytime!  And this time I found this!

I have tried to make my own red bean paste but it was too troublesome and the end result was not satisfactory.  So when I saw this, I grabbed it!

Then I walked briskly over to the flour section and got these!

Finally I can try a recipe which I have bookmarked a long time ago but lack the ingredient (mostly courage) to make - red bean buns!

This recipe is from the talented Lydia from My Kitchen (with my own adaptation).

Ingredients (makes 14 buns)

7g instant dry yeast

170ml lukewarm water (make sure it's not too hot 'cos it'll kill the yeast)

½ tsp lemon juice

280 low-protein flour

100 wheat starch

70g icing sugar (I reduced the sugar a little)

30g vegetable oil

10g baking powder

Filling:

35g red bean paste, divided and shaped into 14 balls (I think I'll make them bigger next time, around 40g per ball)

Methods:

1.  Sift together flours and icing sugar in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the middle.

2.  Mix lukewarm water, lemon juice and yeast well.  Pour the mixture into the well.  Gently stir the water to bring together the flour mixture.

3.  Add in oil and knead till a soft dough is formed. It should be smooth on the surface.

4.  Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rise for 30 mins or until it is double in size.  I had to turn my oven on and let it proof inside because it's too cold now - it's winter! 

5.  Dissolve baking powder in cold water, sprinkle over dough and knead until well combined.  Make sure you dissolve the baking powder thoroughly, otherwise you'll get yellow spots on your buns.  Divide dough into 14 equal portions. 

6.  To make bun, flatten the dough with a rolling pin to make a circle.  The place the filling in the middle, wrap and pinch the dough to seal it.  Cut out parchment paper into squares and place the bun on them.  (I ran out of parchment paper, so I just put them in cupcake paper.) You can choose to have the sealed side facing up or down.  My bun wrapping skill sucks, so I place most of them facing down and they still look ugly... =.="

7.  Arrange buns into a steamer, leave some gaps between the buns.  Spray water mist over buns and steam in a preheated steamer on high heat for 10 mins.  After wrapping all my buns, I realised that I don't own a 

steamer! (How did that happen?!) So I steam them in my tiny 1 liter rice cooker, 4 buns at a time.... =.=" 

Remove buns from steamer and cool them on a rack to prevent soggy bottom.

8.  Then make yourself some of your favorite tea/coffee and enjoy! 

Ok, I need to improve my bun wrapping skill... the red bean paste shouldn't look like a mustache .. but it tastes almost like the ones I get back home!