Hi, Its me again.

Am still looking to perfect the Sweet Soft Buns sold in bakeries in Asian countries.

Can someone help? I have tried many recipes but not satisfied with the results. Has anyone out there tried and succeeded. Do you mind sharing the recipe and technique.

Am thinking of enroling for some lessons maybe ib Taiwan.

Starter Dough

• AP Wheat flour (9,5% protein, i.e. nothing special)
• Milk 250 ml
• Sour cream 100 ml
• Yeast, more than for your ordinary non sweet doughs.

Rest for 45 min

Then add

• White syrup (or sugar, but white plain syrup makes it more moist)
• One egg
• Ground cardamom seeds. First roast them quickly on the stove until they crack open, then grind the black seeds inside.
• Some more flour or any old white dough lying around.
• Salt
• 200g butter in cubes at room temperature is added slowly after 4-5 minutes of machine action.

Rest, divide if necessary and shape each to a smooth heap, rest again. Roll out to 0,3-0.5 cm thickness.

Spread evenly with a soft mix of:

• Butter
• Vanilla flavouring
• Cinnamon

Roll together. Be careful not to roll to thin. Rolling "back" to a thicker size creates a less attractive end result. With QUICK cuts and a non-jagged knife cut the roll in around 3 cm thick slices. Place with minimal space apart on a baking sheet. Not totally together but tight together. Optional: Fill the small spaces in between each roll with raspberry jam.

Let it rise, possibly in a mildly heated and dampened oven, though careful not to melt the butter filling.

Brush with a whisked mixture of

• One egg
• 2 tbsp water
• A pinch of salt 

Sprinkle over some chopped nuts or almonds.

Bake for about 15 min at 225 degrees C in the middle of the oven.

Cool as quickly as possible perhaps even outside to retain moisture.
When cool, garnish with some icing sugar, lemon juice or water mixed to form a thick paste. When half was used i dropped a few drops of Grenadine in what was left and got two colors.

The result from real butter, sour cream, white syrup gives a fantastic taste and moisture while the pre-dough procedure ensures a stronger gluten structure to form and support the rise without the interference of too much sugar initially. As you can see from the picture I only filled some of the gaps with raspberry jam, but the result was good and next time I'll fill them consistantly.

 my sweet buns.. qahtan

A while back, Julie J was asking for advice on how best to crush cardamom for her Finnish cardamom buns. As soon as I saw the recipe, I knew I had to try it! And finally, this week, I got the chance.

I'm not sure if this is how the buns are supposed to look. I pretty much guessed about how much of an indentation to make for the butter. And as I was inserting butter into the thumb holes, I completely forgot about sprinkling extra sugar on top as per Julie's instructions. But I did think of using some inferior apricot jam on two of the buns. It turns out that this is a great way to use and improve apricot jam! I decided to make a 3-strand braided loaf as well. And then when I was placing the buns on the tray and worried that they were too close together, I shaped 4 of the rounds into snakes and braided them together into a smallish 4-strand round loaf.

Did I take my advice to use the coffee grinder to crush the cardamom? Ha! That would have been too easy. I used the mortar and pestle. Remind me to use our big sharp knife next time. The mortar and pestle is way too labour intensive and leaves rather large chunks of cardamom behind. Or perhaps I will follow my own Fresh Loaf advice to use our coffee spice grinder. Luckily, large chunks of cardamom taste good and are soft enough that we aren’t risking getting broken teeth... and the crumb is beautifully soft and moist. Absolutely delicious with or without extra butter! (The extra butter is really unnecessary! But oh so good!)

• Julie J's Finnish Mother Inlaw's recipe
• my take on Finnish Cardamom Bread recipe

-Elizabeth

edit: link to JulieJ's pulla recipe fixed.