Custard and Kaya Wassants -- Second Attempt

Following Priscilla Poh's comment for my first attempt at making wassants, I made my second attempt using the bread recipe from Awayofmind Bakery House and studied the traditional way of shaping wassants, but kept to my recipe for the fillings which can't be found elsewhere on the internet. Here's my homemade version of my kids' favorite buns from Petit Provence :).

Looks more like what you see in the shops but still have lots of room for improvement in the shaping department!

Love the swirls from a sliced wassant!

The bun is soft and fluffy in the inside and has a thin crispy crust on the outside when freshly baked. And it smells heavenly!

I made the custard and kaya paste, and the Tangzhong the day before. This time round I used 2 tbs of kaya spread for the kaya paste and cooked both pastes until they are of a soft dough consistency before packing them into ziplock bags to set in the fridge.

The kaya paste is much easier to handle this time round as it is not too runny. Here's a pic of kaya wassant shaping-in-progress.

For your convenience I will type out the recipe for the pastes and bread here, and will provide more details for making the pastes since you can't find it elsewhere.

Recipe for custard paste (adapted from Kristy)
Ingredients:
1 egg white
30g cake flour
5g cornflour
1 tbs custard powder
2 tbs milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 drops of yellow liquid food coloring (optional)
75g white chocolate, chopped

Steps:
1. Combine all the ingredients except white chocolate and mix well with a whisk.
2. Melt chopped white chocolate in a non-stick saucepan using double-boiling method. Be careful not to over-heat the chocolate or it will become hard. White chocolate has a burning point of 44 degrees Celsius so take it off the heat to stir once most of the pieces have melted.
3. Pour egg white mixture into the saucepan and mix well. Heat over low heat and keep stirring until a soft dough is formed. This is to ensure that the paste is stiff enough to handle after cooling in the fridge.
4. Cool completely. Transfer paste into a small ziplock bag and shape it into a sheet of approxomately 10 x 12cm. (If you are doubling the recipe for each flavor of paste, you may follow the size of sheet that other bloggers used, like Vivian Pang used 16 x 16 cm.) Refrigerate overnight.

Recipe for kaya paste
Ingredients:
1 egg white
30g cake flour
5g cornflour
2 tbs pandan kaya spread/jam
1/4 tsp pandan paste
2 drops green liquid food coloring (optional especially if your pandan paste is already green.)
75g white chocolate, chopped

Steps are same as the custard paste.

Recipe for wassant bread dough
Ingredients:
250g bread flour (plus extra for dusting if necessary)
50g cake flour
24g milk powder
30g sugar
4g salt
6g instant yeast
100g Tangzhong
1 egg
80g fresh milk
30g unsalted butter

Steps:
1. Prepare the Tangzhong ahead of time. I combined 30g of bread flour with 150g of water and cooked over low heat on the stove, kept stirring until I saw swirl lines appear. I cooled the TZ and kept in the fridge with clingwrap covering it and touching the surface to prevent it from drying out.
2. In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients and mix well. Add instant yeast only after everything has been thoroughly mixed.
3. Add egg, milk and Tangzhong and mix with a wooden spoon until a dough is formed. Pour onto a non-stick mat and knead until smooth (you may make the bread dough using breadmaker or stand mixer). Gradually add butter and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic and passes the windowpane test. Mine took about 20-25minutes of kneading. The dough is soft and sticky so I had to throw the dough quite a bit and dust with a bit of flour during kneading.
4. Let the dough proof in a lightly greased bowl and covered in cling wrap until doubled in size. About half an hour in Singapore's weather.
5. Punch down the dough and knead a few times to expel trapped air. Divide the dough into two portions, one for kaya and one for custard flavor.
6. Shape the wassants. Do have a look at Do what I like and Vivian Pang's blogs for the pictorial steps to shape the wassants. I halved the dimensions since I worked with half the quantity.
7. Proof again for 45-50minutes, apply milk glaze (or egg wash if you prefer) and bake in preheated oven at 175-180 degrees Celsius for 14-15 minutes.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Bake For Happy Kids, and My Little Favourite DIY, hosted by Tze of Awayofmind Bakery House at this post. 

With love,
Phay Shing