Green Tea Red Bean Bun 蜜红豆绿茶面包

A soft milk bun with a green tea and sweetened red beans centre. The green tea centre is so soothing to the eyes and the sweetened red beans added a different texture and taste to this soft bread :)

Yield: 8 x 8cm round buns

Raw dough weight: 412g

Ingredients 

140g whole milk + egg
15g condensed milk
1/2 tsp instant dry yeast 

185g bread flour 
20g top/cake flour

35g fine raw sugar 

1/4 tsp salt 

30g unsalted butter 

1 tsp green tea powder
60g sweetened red beans

Some flour and green tea powder for dusting

Directions 

1. Add an egg to a bowl and top up with fresh milk to a total mass of 140g.

2. Add condensed milk to the egg-milk mixture. Keep warm the contents in a rice cooker for about 10 minutes, if your ingredients are fridge cold.

Try not to break the yolk.

3. Sprinkle instant dry yeast over the warm egg-milk mixture. Cover and let it activate the yeast for about 10 to 15 minutes.

4. Mix bread flour, cake flour, raw sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.

5. Pour in the yeast-milk mixture from (3), and stir in one direction till the ingredients form into a lump which pulls away from the wall of the mixing bowl.

Cover with a lid and let the dough absorb the liquid for 15 minutes.

6. Knead the dough for about 5 to 10 minutes, till it becomes a smooth dough.

7. Spread out the dough and knead in the softened butter. Continue to knead till the dough can be stretched out into a membrane.

Shape the dough into a ball.

8. Divide the dough into 240g and 170g. Shape the bigger portion into a ball, and place in a greased container. Cover with a lid.

9. Take the smaller dough and knead with green tea powder into a smooth dough.

Place the green tea dough into a greased container and cover with a lid.

Let both doughs proof for about 1 hour.

10. After the one hour proofing, sprinkle some flour on the work top, and invert out the milk dough

After flattening the dough with your palm, cut the dough into 8 portions.

Roll into balls and place in a covered plate to rest for about 15 minutes.

11. Flatten the green tea dough and divide into 8 portions.

12. Roll out a portion of the green tea dough and place some sweetened red beans over it.

Roll up and shape into a ball.

13. Roll out a milk dough and wrap up a green tea dough in the centre.

14. Place the finished doughs over a baking tray.

Spray some water and proof in a closed  warm oven for about 30 minutes.

15. After the second proofing, transfer the dough out of the oven. Start to preheat the oven to 170 degree Celsius for 10 minutes.

While waiting, dust some flour over the dough.

16. Bake the dough in an preheated oven for about 17 minutes at 170 degree Celsius placed at lower rack.

17. After transferring the bread out of the oven, dust some green tea powder over the top of the bread.

18. Let the buns cool down on a wire rack.

Enjoy :)

Sweetened red beans

1. Wash and soak red beans for more than 3 hours or overnight.

2. Drain the red beans and add water in a ratio of 

red bean : water = 1 : 4

to the inner pot of a thermal cooker.

3. Bring to a boil for about 10 minutes, cover and transfer to the external pot of the thermal cooker. Let the beans stay in the thermal cooker for about 1 hour.

4. After an hour, check whether the beans have softened. If the beans have not reach the desired softness, bring the mixture to a boil again and repeat 

step 3.

5. After the beans have softened, pour away 3/4 of the water. Return the beans to the stove and add in sugar or rock sugar. Stir and heat till the sugar has melted.