All Entries in the "Bread" Category

Napa Cabbage and Pork Steamed Bun (Choy Yoke Pau)

Grace showed us how to make another batch of dough on the spot. For this batch of dough, we made Napa Cabbage and Pork Steamed Bun or in Cantonese it’s called Choy Yoke Pau.

The Napa Cabbage and Pork Steamed Bun is moist and taste great. You can substitute the cabbage with garlic chives.

Ingredients

Ingredients for the dough:

• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups milk (you may substitute with water plus two tablespoons of milk powder or 1/2 cup of coconut milk plus a cup of water)
• 1 tablespoon margarine
• 1 teaspoon yeast
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 or 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 egg, optional

Ingredients for the filings:

• 1/2 lb lean ground pork
• 1/2 head small Napa cabbage
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• constarch
• ginger powder
• salt
• sugar
• white pepper

Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Red Bean Paste Steamed Bun (Dao Sar Pau)

The participants of the Gilmore Church Park Community Kitchen were very excited when they knew that Grace will be demonstrating to us how to make Chinese Steamed Buns from scratch. Grace has recently coming back to the kitchen after she quit her job in the T&T kitchen. She had been working in the T&T kitchen, the Chinese Buns section for more than six months. She learned her trade of making Chinese Buns there. According to Grace, working in the T&T kitchen is very back breaking and the staff have to work for long hours. We are so fortunate to have Grace showing us what she took more than 6 months of hard work to learn.

The Red Bean Paste Steamed Bun is fluffy and lightly chewy, which the Chinese said has a good bite to it, (ko garn).

Nothing beats some freshly made steamed buns from a bamboo steamer in your own kitchen.

Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Pineapple Bun (Polo Bun)

Arkensen and Nanzaro love Pineapple Bun, particularly from Lido Restaurant. I got this Pineapple Bun recipe from Helen. Helen has not attempt to make it because the recipe is in grams and cc which is a bit tedious to measure. Morever, Helen said it involves quite a bit of steps which seem quite complicated to her. Anyway, this is my first attempt making it and it turned out quite ok.

The Pineapple Bun (or Polo Bun) turned out quite soft and I think the dough recipe is good for any other bun. The bun remains soft even after two days.

Now, I know why it’s called Pineapple Bun. The name came from the look of the topping which resembles the pineapple skin.

It took me quite long to make it as I was trying to convert the measuring into cups and spoons as far as possible so that it’s easier for me to make it again.

Ingredients

Dough:

• 240g bread flour (2 cups less 3 tablespoons), I used all-purpose flour
• 60g cake flour (8 tablespoons)
• 45g sugar (3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon)
• 5g yeast (1 1/2 teaspoons)
• 30cc egg (1 medium egg)
• 135g water (125ml)
• 3g salt (1/2 teaspoon)
• 9g milk powder (2 tablespoons)
• 30cc warm water
• 45g butter (3 tablespoons)

Topping:

• 80g butter (6 tablespoons)
• 50cc egg
• 1 g salt (a pinch)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 50g icing sugar (1/2 cup)
• 5g milk powder (1 tablespoon)
• 150g cake flour (1 1/4 cups)
• another egg for egg wash

Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Cream Cheese Bun

Ben decided that I should release a few of my recipe posts before he starts our Seattle vacation series. So, here I go again.

Helen is my morning walk companion. We walk at the South Arm Park twice a week and we chit chat about our kids, recipes and all sorts of things. She shared with me this Cream Cheese Bun recipe. We are always in search of bread recipe which yields soft bun which lasts for a couple of days. A lot of the recipes we tried before yield soft buns when they first come out from the oven but they will become tough the next day.

This Cream Cheese Bun remains relatively soft the next day. For best result, microwave for 10 seconds if you consume it the next day.

I made the Cream Cheese Bun in the muffin pan as the recipe is for a small loaf. Helen had tried to make it as a loaf but it did not turn out right. I have never try to make it as loaf.

Arkensen and Nanzaro like to eat the Cream Cheese Bun with nutella. Sometime, I snug in some white chocolate wafer for a little surprise. You can fill the bun with red bean paste, lotus seed paste, etc. But my kids like it plain with nutella.

Ingredients

Ingredient A:

• 1/3 cup warm water
• 1 1/4 teaspoons yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Ingredient B:

• 1 2/3 cups flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3 tablespoons cream cheese

Ingredient C:

• 3 tablespoons butter, softened

Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Chocolate Bun

This is Arkensen and Nanzaro’s favourite bun. It is chocolatey and soft. Sometimes, I fill the buns with some semi-sweet chocolate chips to give it the extra omph.

This time, I filled the Chocolate Bun with a few white chocolate wafers.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 3 cups bread flour (I used all purpose flour)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup warm milk
• chocolate chips/wafer (optional)

I used the bread machine to prepare the dough. Set the bread machine to sweet bread setting. Place the ingredients into the machine in the order as per your machine’s requirement.
Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Pizza Party

Nanzaro’s class is having a Pizza Party just prior to the Winter break. This is another fun project for the class. The students got to make pizza all by themselves. The class is divided in groups of five and they made the pizza from scratch, from making the dough and choosing their own toppings.

The class had so much fun doing this project. It’s the best pizza they ever had because of their labour of love.

The recipe for the pizza dough is very simple and that is the beauty of it; good for classroom project.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon yeast
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2/3 cup lukewarm water (plus an additional 2 tablespoons)

Instructions

1. Mix 1 cup of flour with all other ingredients.
2. Gradually add 2nd cup of flour until it forms a ball. Use your hands to from and knead the dough.
3. Place the dough in an oiled bowl and lightly oil the dough by rotating it in the oiled bowl.
4. Let the dough rest 10-15 minutes in a bowl covered with a dish tower or saran to keep it warm.
5. Spread out onto greased pizza pan and top with your favourite toppings.
6. Bake at 425F for approximately 15 minutes.

Click on the link for more photos.

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Red Bean Bun

Julie also made some Red Bean Bun which is great for snacking. I know it looks so much like hamburgers (a full meal even) but it is actually light despite the size. This is actually a simplified version of those Japanese Red Bean Pancake (Dorayaki). Julie used store bought bun to substitute the pancake.

However, the red bean paste, Julie made her own. She preferred a coarser texture red bean paste than those smooth one from the store. She did not show us how to do this though as it takes time to make it.

To assemble this, just warm up the bun using the oven or microwave and fill the bun the red bean paste.

The Red Bean Bun makes an excellent snack. It is best eaten warm.

Ha ha … this is not much of a recipe huh? I hope to get Julie to show me how she makes her red bean paste someday.