Sugar Crust Cocoa Banana Bun

This is the third recipe of my banana yeast bread trilogy. The cocoa and banana flavoured bun wrapped up a soft and creamy banana strip in the centre, and topped with butter-sugar frost crust. The taste was wonderful and quite close to banana fritter. It has become my best loved banana bread recipe so far 😍

The bread dough was kneaded using a 450W powerful hand mixer fixed with dough hooks. The kneading process took about 10 minutes to complete since it was small dough 😄

The other two recipes of my banana yeast bread trilogy:
Click the links to access to the recipes:
banana cocoa yeast bread

Banana Butter Yeast Bread

Yield: 4 buns, about 10cm long
Baking temperature: 200℃ for 5 minutes, reduce to 180℃ for 12 minutes.
Dough weight: about 224g

Ingredients A
10g bread flour
1g instant dry yeast
10g water
20g sourdough, 100% hydration^

Ingredient B
50g bread flour
50g Plain Flour plus*
15g fine sugar
1g fine salt

Ingredient C
20g mashed banana
Sponge from Step 1
10g rice bran oil/mild flavaour veggie oil
30g water, to be added gradually during kneading

^ 20g sourdough can be replaced by 10g each of bread flour and water
* Plain Flour plus is all purpose flour added with 25% of superfine wholegrain flour

Prima Plain Flour plus & Bread Flour

Ingredient D
40g banana strips
some softened butter

Ingredient E
5g unsalted butter, softened
1 tbsp icing sugar

Directions

1. Mix all the Ingredient A and let it proof for about 1 hour as sponge.

One hour later

2. Mix all the dry ingredients under Ingredient B together in a mixing bowl.

Mix the dry ingredients using Speed 1 of the hand mixer fitted with a pair of dough hooks.

Let the tips of the dough hooks facing each other.

3. Mix in the wet ingredients under Ingredient C.

mashed banana

Sponge from Step 1.

Add rice bran oil and gradually add in the water.

Start at Speed 1 until all the ingredients form into a lump. Then increase the hand mixer speed to Speed 5. Knead till the dough becomes smooth and can pull out a membrane, or reaching window pane.

4. Do about 30 to 50 sets of "slap and fold"

Video showing the kneading process using a hand mixer.

5. Shape the dough into a ball and place in a lightly greased big mixing bowl.

Spray some water, cover with a lid, and let the dough proof for about 60 to 70 minutes, or till it double in size.

6. Invert out the dough onto a floured worktop.

Deflate the dough and divide into 4 portions.

Shape into balls, cover with a lid, and rest of about 15 minutes.

6. While waiting, cut about 40~50g of ripen banana into 4 long strips, about 5 cm. Coat the banana strips with softened butter. Set aside.
You can use a bigger portion of banana strips. As I only have one banana left, so couldn't give a bigger portions.

7. Roll out a dough into a flat dough of about 5mm thick.

Place a banana strip at one end of the dough.

Roll up the dough, and press the two ends to seal, at the same time.

Pinch the edge to seal.

Shape the dough into a long pillow.

Arrange the shaped dough over a baking tray lined with non-stick baking sheet.

Spray some water over the surface, and proof in a closed oven for about 30~40 minutes, or till double in size.

8. Remove the shaped dough out of the oven, and start to preheat oven to 200℃ for about 10 minutes.

Spread softened butter under Ingredient E over the surface of the shaped dough.

Dust a thick coat of icing sugar over the tops.

9. Bake at middle rack of a preheated oven at 200℃ for 5 minutes, reduce to 180℃ for 12 minutes, or till the top turned into golden.

10. Transfer the buns to a cooling rack to cool down for about 10 minutes before consumption. The buns are best enjoyed warm 😋