Japanese Milk Bun Bears with Kaya Filling

School has just reopened, so I made these simple Japanese Milk Bread Buns with kaya filling for my kids' snack break. It's an easy bake, using a similar recipe to the previous Chocolate Bear-in-a-cone, but without cocoa powder.

Milk Bun Bears (With Kaya filling)
(A)
100g Prima bread flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp instant dry yeast
130g warm milk (~37°C, I microwaved for 20 secs)

(B)
100g Prima bread flour
20g unsalted butter
1/3 tsp salt

Black/pink food marker for decoration

1. In the stand mixer bowl, add all the dry ingredients in (A). Then add in the warm milk and mix vigorously using the dough hook for a few minutes. This helps to activate the yeast. Stop when you see little tiny bubbles popping when you stop stirring.

2. Add in the rest of (B) ingredients into the bowl. and mix using the dough hook until window pane stage (around 20 min, using speed 3). *Check for window pane after kneading for 20 min

3. Cover with cling wrap. Let it proof for 40 min for 1st fermentation. The dough will increase in size to about 1.5-2 times.

4. Do the finger test for the bread dough (leave an indent). Once the 1st fermentation is ok, remove the dough from the mixing bowl and degas the dough.

5. Divide the dough into 6 equal parts. Shape into balls and cover for 10mins (bench time).

6. After 10 min, flatten the dough and section out 2 small parts for the bear’s ears, and 2 smaller parts for bear's hands.

7. Flatten the larger dough into a circle. Place a 2 tsp ball of kaya (or whatever filling desired) in the center. Pinch to seal and roll into a round ball. Place the ball with pinched ends facing down on the prepared baking tray.

8. Repeat for the rest of the bread dough. Attach the ears and hands onto the bread. I used pasta sticks to prevent ears from dropping after proofing. I didn't need to use for the hands as they were small.

9. Cover gently with cling wrap. Let it rest for 30 min for 2nd fermentation.

10. Preheat oven to 180°C. Place the buns into the oven then lower to 150°C. Bake at 150°C for 30 min.

11. Cool the buns completely on a wire rack.

12. Draw on features using food marker.

Hope you like the simple, easy and cute bread buns!

With lots of love,

Susanne

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Horse Japanese Sweet Bean Buns (using Wu Pao Chun Champion Toast Recipe)

It's really fun that my children are starting to be involved in my bakes. They have started to request for all kinds of animals for snacks and I have become their "zoo master" who whips up all sorts of animals ^_^". So this week's request was a horse and this is my valiant attempt at a horse (phew!). Yee haw! :p

Anyway, my family cannot get enough of the sweet Japanese red beans! I chanced upon another type of sweet red bean in Daiso called "Japanese sweet bean jam with whole azuki beans". Oh, it's so good you can eat it on its own! This time I tried using the famous Wu Pao Chun Champion Toast recipe for making the bun dough. I have been wanting to try this straight dough method that yields really soft bread recommended by Phay Shing, and I was further piqued the recipe is so similar to the Panda Japanese milk buns that were so soft. For the un-inclined, Wu Pao Chun is a world champion bread bakery in Taiwan. Their Red Wine Longan bread has won numerous medals in top class world bread making competitions and long queues often form at their entrance for their limited award-winning breads.

Recipe for the bun dough using Wu Pao Chun Champion Toast is adapted from Aunty Young. I have used the recipe used the dough function on my breadmaker to prepare the dough, but you can also knead it by hand and let it proof.

Ingredients (makes 8 buns)
Bread flour 300g
Castor sugar 24g
Salt 4g
Butter 15 g
Fresh milk 198 g
Yeast 3g

Method
1. Put the ingredients into the breadmaker pan according to the sequence below:
- Add the wet ingredients first: milk.
- Add the dry ingredients next: bread flour, sugar at the side, yeast in the middle (dig a small hole).
- Select dough function on bm. When the mixture is being combined around 2-5 min later, add in the salt and the softened butter.

2. Meanwhile, prepare the Japanese sweet bean jam with azuki beans into 30g balls each.

3. After the breadmaker is finished with the dough function, transfer the dough out onto a lightly floured table and punch it down (top left pic).

4. Divide the dough into eight 60g balls for the horses. Divide the rest of the dough into sixteen 2g balls for each ear. Let the dough rest for 10 min under cling wrap.

5. Flatten each 60g ball into an oval disc (top row, middle pic) and place an azuki bean ball on top (top row, right pic). Roll the dough over on the long side, pinch tight and place them with its pinched sides facing down on the baking paper.

6. Stick the ears onto the top of the buns and pinch the edges to make them pointed (see bottom row, left pic). Cover with cling wrap and let the dough rise for 60 min (bottom row, left pic). *Meanwhile, preheat the oven meanwhile to 190°C.

7. Prepare 1 tsp cocoa powder with 1 egg yolk for painting on the brown mouth patch, eyes and hair. Brush them on with a fine brush after proofing before going in to the oven (bottom row, middle pic).

8. Lower the temperature to 140°C before placing the buns at the lowest rack. Bake for 22-25 min or till the bread sounds hollow when you tap on it (bottom row, right pic).

I painted the nostrils with charcoal powder mixed with water. Just use a fine brush to paint it on. I gave the horses some sweet rosy cheeks using food markers just for fun :).

Homemade buns are always over packed with fillings! :D Check out the yummy sweet red beans spilling out! I found the bread really fine, soft and fluffy though it was a straight dough method! The caption says it all :D.

With love,
Susanne

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Froggy Pandan Azuki Buns using Pancake Mix

Being a busy mum with 3 young children, I am always on the lookout for quick and easy recipes. My family loves red bean buns, so when I saw this recipe on cookpad for easy sweet bean buns using pancake mix, I got curious. The description goes: "Since these buns will be ready in no time, mischievous kids won't have time do something bad!". Sounded perfect for me LOL! The buns take only 15-20 mins to prepare and shape since no proofing is required, so it's perfect for some days you want a quick and easy yummy snack for the kids.

I infused pandan flavour using pandan paste to make froggy buns. I was in part inspired by Victoria's cute melon bread to make cute animal versions. My son gave this bun a thumbs up. While it has a structure similar to bread, the texture is somewhat like that of a muffin, being sweeter, tastier and more crumbly. The pandan obviously made the buns very tasty and fragrant, and anything with the azuki bean paste always gets a thumbs up from the family. If you like muffins, give this a go! But if you are looking for bread or soft cakes like chiffon, this may not be what you are looking for. This is great if you want a quick and easy, muffin-like azuki bun snack. 

Ingredients (makes 4 frog buns)

200g pancake mix (I used Morinaga)

1 egg
15 ml fresh milk
15 ml vegetable oil
Azuki bean paste (I bought from Daiso) (25g x 4)
Pandan paste

Strawberry paste

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Divide the azuki bean paste into 25g balls each.

2. Mix the pancake mix, egg, milk and vegetable oil (top left pic). Knead until the dough becomes soft and moist (top right pic). *I used my hands to knead.

3. Portion out 30g plain dough for eyes. Next, portion out 15g dough for the rosy cheeks, add a drop of strawberry paste and knead until the dough is evenly mixed. To the remaining dough, add ½ tsp pandan paste and knead until the dough is evenly mixed (second row, left pic).

4. Divide the pandan dough into 4 portions weighing 50-52g each and press down with hand to flatten (second row, right pic).

5. Place each azuki ball into the green circles (3rd row, left pic), seal and pinch tight, and place them onto a baking paper-lined tray with its pinched side facing down (3rd row, right pic).

6. Divide the plain dough into 8 circles for the eyes. You can do this easily but rolling the plain dough into a long roll, cutting up into 8 pieces and then rolling each piece. Do likewise for the pink dough, dividing them into 8 circles for rosy cheeks. Affix them onto the green balls (bottom row, left pic).

7. Lower the temperature to 140°C before placing the froggy buns at the lowest rack. Bake for 28-30 min or until skewer comes clean.

8. Brush with butter while the buns are warm for a light shine and richer taste.

9. Let the buns cool completely on a cooling rack.

*The buns were baked at 170°C for 20 min in the original recipe. I lowered the temperature to reduce browning for the froggy buns.
*If you do not wish to make froggy buns, omit steps 3 and 6, and divide the dough into 8 portions for 8 buns in the original recipe.
*I used a food marker to draw in the eyes and mouth after the buns were baked.


My daughter was thrilled to see the froggy buns! These are the buns freshly out of the oven (before the butter brush). Do they make you smile too?

And here's a close-up of the azuki paste filling in the pandan buns :) I am happy my son liked them :).

With love,

Susanne :)

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40 min "Piggies-On-Merry-Go-Round" Azuki Buns

A bread that only takes 40 mins from start to your mouth! How good is that! This 40 min bread has been going around the circles in culinary kitchenette after domestic goddess wannabe shared this lovely recipe and I had to try! Verdict: it does make bread that is really soft and keeps soft next day! Her blog is a must-read for it's excellent troubleshooting guide and tips.

I adapted the recipe to make 6 azuki buns, my family's favourite, and piggy buns, requested by my daughter ^_^. This recipe includes a quick shaping tutorial using cutters for piggies with azuki filling to shape the buns in just 10 mins (inspired by a friend's piggy buns).

Ingredients (makes 6)

1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp warm water
1/6 cup oil
1 tbsp instant yeast
1/8 cup sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 egg
1 3/4 cup bread flour

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 220^oC.

2. In your mixer bowl, combine the water, oil, yeast and sugar (top left) and allow it to rest for 15 minutes to let the yeast come to life (top right). During this time, I divided the azuki paste into 40g balls.
3. Add in salt, egg and flour (bottom left). Using your dough hook, mix and knead until will incorporated (bottom right) and dough is soft and smooth (less than 5 minutes).
4. Oil your hands and work surface so that the dough doesn't stick to them. Shape dough into 6 piggies balls with azuki paste (10 min).

- Roll dough into 2-3mm thick sheet.
- Use a cup (I used McDonald's cola cup) to make 6 big circles for dough and 3 cm round cutter to make 11 small circles.
- For the noses, make 2 small holes using toothpick in 6 of the small circles.
- For the ears, cut 3 of the small circles into quarters (each quarter is a ear).
- For the tiny feet, cut 2 of the small circles into quarters, then further divide each quarter into 2 to make a feet.
- Place each azuki ball into the big circles, seal and pinch tight, and place in a greased 17 cm chiffon tin with its pinched side facing down.
- Stick on the noses, ears and feet.
- Use a toothpick to carve out piggy eyes on the buns.
5. Allow to rest for 10 minutes. Glaze lightly with egg wash.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

Don't the piggies look so comfy snuggling together? That's my happy girl eating her piggy bun! :)

With love,
Susanne

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