Almond Crumb Butter Bun (Yudane)

An upgraded or slightly more luxury version of the popular sugar butter bun. Instead of just sprinkling sugar over the soft butter topping before baking, sugar almond crumbs were being added. The almond sugar butter crumbs topping really uplifted the plain soft bun to a great extent 😍😋

I have added some pumpkin powder to the dough, however, there it did not give much prominent yellow tone to the bread 😕

Yield: 9 small buns

Raw dough weight: 508g

Baking temperature:  Preheat oven to 190℃, middle rack, bake at 180℃ for 11 minutes, reduce to 170℃ for 6 minutes, turn off heating and bake for 3 minutes.

Baked using Teka HLB840 oven with Temperature Surround feature which allows breads to be baked at a shorter duration.

Almond Crumbs

Below quantity made 45g

Ingredients

4g almond powder

10g demerara sugar/raw sugar %

18g top/cake flour

2g milk powder

1g lemon rind, chopped finely, optional

10g salted butter, cold

% you can increase the sugar quantity if you like a sweeter almond crumbs.

Directions

1. Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. 

Add in cold butter and break it into smaller chunks.

2. Use your fingers to break and rub the mixture into small crumbs.

Keep the almond crumbs in the fridge till needed.

Milk Bun Dough

Ingredients

200g bread flour

12g top flour/cake flour

8g pumpkin powder/top/cake flour

30g raw sugar

1g instant dry yeast

50g natural yeast/sourdough, 100% hydration*

30g yudane dough^

110g low-fat milk, cold +

10g whipping cream +

15g beaten egg

25g cold water, to be added depending on dough condition

3g low sodium salt

20g unsalted butter, softened

Toppings

some beaten egg

20g salted butter, softened

45g almond crumbs from above

* 50g natural yeast can be replaced by 25g each of bread flour and water + 1/8 tsp instant dry yeast. Let the mixture stands for about 1 hour or more till double in volume, before use. You can also keep the mixture in the fridge overnight and thaw it for 1 hour before use.

^ 30g yudane dough is prepared by combining 16g of bread flour with 15g of very hot or boiling water into a sticky dough. Wrap the yudane dough in cling wrap, and cool down before use. Use a silicone spatula to scrape out the sticky yudane dough from the cling wrap.

+ 110g low fat milk & 10g whipping cream can be replaced by 120g fresh milk.

Directions

1. Knead the dough following your preferred method. 

For my method, you can refer to my recipe Yudane Milk Bread. After kneading the dough to window pane stage, 

shape the dough into a ball,

and keep in a plastic bag pre-coated with a thin coat of oil. Squeeze out most of the air, tie a loose knot, and keep in a second plastic bag.

Place the bag of dough in a big mixing bowl, cover with a lid, and store the dough in the fridge overnight to undergo cold fermentation. I let the dough keep in the fridge for about 14 to 16 hours.

2. In the next day, invert the dough with the plastic bag, and thaw the dough for about 1 hour in room temperature. 

3. Transfer the thawed dough to a floured work top, deflate, and divide into 9 portions.

Shape into 9 balls, cover with a tea cloth, and let them rest for 15 minutes.

4. Roll out a dough ball into a flat long dough of about 1cm thick.

Flip over the dough,  roll up the dough from the longer edge, and pinch to seal the joining edges. Shape into a cigar shape, and flatten the top a little.

5. Transfer the shaped dough to a non-stick baking tray.

Let the shaped dough proof in a closed oven for about 30 minutes. A shorter second proofing as the shaped dough need a longer time to "decorate" later 😉

6. Remove the tray of shaped dough from the oven. Start to preheat the oven to 190℃ for about 10 minutes.

Cut a long slit along the middle line of the dough, leaving about 1-cm length un-cut at both ends.

Brush some beaten egg over the dough surface except the slit.

Squeeze softened salted butter to fill the slit.

Sprinkle almond crumbs over the top of the shaped dough.

7. Bake at middle rack, at 180℃ for 11 minutes, lower to 170℃ for about 6 minutes, turn off heating and continue to bake for about 3 minutes.

8. Remove the tray of hot buns from oven and rest over a cooling rack.