Chocolate Bun (Yudane)

When the weather becomes a bit colder, I would crave for the warm chocolate buns. Inspired by the almond glaze applied to the panettones, which many of my friends were baking recently, I just tried it on my chocolate buns. Chocolaty buns with sweet cocoa crust, and sticky sweet chocolate filling 😍😋

Yield: 10 small buns
Raw dough weight: 530g
1st proofing: overnight in fridge 
Thaw for 80 minutes before shaping 
2nd proofing: 25 minutes 
Baking temperature:  Preheat oven to 190℃, middle rack, bake at 180℃ for 11 minutes, lower to 170℃ for 5 minutes, finally turn off oven and continue to bake for 2 minutes, or till crust turns lightly golden brown.

Ingredients

205g bread flour

15g superfine wholegrain flour 

5g cocoa powder

30g raw sugar

1g instant dry yeast

50g natural yeast/sourdough, 100% hydration*

30g yudane dough^

120g sweet chocolate milk, cold

20g whipping cream

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

3g low sodium salt

20g unsalted butter

Filling

35~40g chocolate chips for baking

Almond Cocoa Glaze (72g)

40g raw sugar

5g chopped almond 

3g corn starch

3g rice flour/corn starch

2g almond flour

2g cocoa powder

5g spreadable butter/rice bran oil

15g egg white

Topping

4g sugar grains for baking

* 50g natural yeast can be replaced by 25g each of bread flour and water + 1/8 tsp instant dry yeast. Let the mixture stand for about 1 hour or more till it doubles 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 16g 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.

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, 

2. After kneading the chocolate milk dough to window pane, shape the dough into a ball, and keep in a plastic bag coated with a little cooking oil. Keep the dough in the fridge overnight.

3. In the next day, remove the outer plastic bag, and let the dough thaw at room temperature for about 90 to 100 minutes. 

4. Divide the dough into 10 portions, shape into balls and let them rest for about 15 minutes.

5. Roll out a dough into a flat dough with the edge thinner than the center. Add about 3 to 4g of chocolate chips to the center.

Wrap up the dough, and shape into a ball. Arrange the shaped dough on a baking tray. 

Let the shaped dough rest in a cold oven for about 25 minutes.

6. While waiting for the shaped dough to proof, prepare the almond cocoa glaze.

Mix all the ingredients into a glaze.

7. Remove the shaped dough from the oven, and start to preheat the oven to 190℃ for about 10 minutes.

While waiting, spoon the almond cocoa glaze over the top of the shaped dough. The glaze would flow down from the top.

Scatter some sugar grains over the top.

8. Bake at middle rack, at 180℃ for 11 minutes, lower to 170℃ for 5 minutes, turn off oven and continue to bake for 2 minutes, or till the almond cocoa glaze has dried up.

9. Remove the hot buns from the oven, and cool down a while before serving them warm 😋

The almond cocoa glaze crust would become wet after a while. Just give the buns a light toast before serving to dry up the crust again. Enjoy 😀