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Baked red bean buns

and this is how I like my red beans :)

Molecular biologists love genes, and how different gene products interact with each together to generate many of the complex biological processes that keep our body in one piece (or in the case of disease, how all of this falls apart). Why does someone behave in a particular way? It's because of his or her genetic makeup, some say. Others say there is an equal influence from the environment, or what the individual is exposed to.

I'd like to argue that this is particularly true with first impressions. As a young child in Hong Kong, there were certain smells and sights and sounds that flooded my senses: the freshly steamed rice noodles drizzled with soy sauce, peanut sauce, hoisin sauce and lightly toasted sesame seeds wrapped in paper from the street vendors, the dazzling array of colours from the fruit and vegetable stalls, the constant buzzing and honking from people riding bicycles, buses or taxis, and of course, the aroma of just-baked buns and loaves, wafting from the bakeries.

I'm going to paint in broad strokes and say that Hong Kong bakery-style buns are, in general, very different from those that you can find in European bakeries. True, both place an emphasis on texture and flavour and shaping, but with Hong Kong style buns you're looking for more pillowy-soft crust and crumb, often flavoured with additional ingredients like coconut or sweetened pastes or cubed ham and shaped into individual serving buns.

While I have been on a preferment/sourdough, blistering crust, multigrain kick lately, Shiao-Ping's recent TFL post on Chinese Po-Lo Buns (Pineapple Buns, or 菠蘿飽) evoked memories of these buns that I love so dearly. Some impressions just die hard.

These baked red bean buns (焗豆沙飽) are for those who love Hong Kong bakery-style breads, and for those who sometimes complain that my loaves of bread are "too crackly and crusty." ("How come they don't taste softer, like cake?")

Baked Red Bean Buns

- basic sweet dough, like this one, this one or this one
- lightly sweetened red bean paste (I used canned, ready-to-use paste but you can certainly make your own)
- egg wash: 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- sesame seeds, optional

After bulk fermentation of the dough, I divided it into eight portions of ~45g each, and shaped them based on a great photo tutorial posted by hidehide here.

Final proof: ~30-40 min.

Brush with egg wash, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and bake in a preheated 350F oven for 17-20 min. until golden brown.

Enjoy!

Full post here.

Lang Lang was on the radio this morning (his piano, not his presence).  The English lady, Emma Ayres, hosts a fine, fine classic FM radio show, Teas on Toast, on ABC Radio.  She played Lang Lang's Haydn sonata in Carnegie Hall, 2003.   Lang Lang, 27, is the pride of modern day Mainland Chinese.   His reputation spread so rapidly that a Chinese-language biography appeared before his 17th birthday.  I have no business joining the band wagon in praising him.   But I can feel his sensibility through his fingers (the fastest fingers in the whole of China, his fans will have you believe).   

He comes from Sheng-Yang in the far north of China.  Whenever I think of northern China, I think of the noodles they have and the hot steam buns they have.   They always say that the north has wheat and the men grow tall up there (and ride horses!); and the south has rice.   My father comes from the border line between the north and the south in Mainland China, so we ate both noodles and rice at home when I was growing up.   My father's favourite Sunday lunch was noodles with the best quality soy sauce one could find.   Can you imagine fresh pasta with the best quality olive oil you can find; it is like that.   Plain, with nothing else on, the flavour of flour comes "shining through" (to borrow James MacGuire's words) in freshly boiled noodles.  

We kids didn't appreciate that.   

So, on the way driving home from dropping the kids to school this morning, I thought to myself - Lang Lang, I am going to do a steam bun today, my version.   You watch.   

1. Roll the dough (formula below) out to about 1/2 to 1 cm thickness.  Sprinkle some olive oil and salt on top (a couple of drops of sesame oil would be GRAND), spreading it evenly, and
2. Sprinkle the chopped shallots. 
3. Fold 1/3 of the dough to the center, then the other 1/3 to the center like folding a letter (the dough now has 3 layers).  Slice the dough one inch width apart.  
4. Place two pieces on top of each other (ie, six layers in total).
5. With the help of two chopsticks, press the dough down to the bottom to make indentations.  
6. Slide the chopsticks underneath the dough, lift the dough up, then twist the dough    

I made some smaller ones with just three layers too:  

My formula: this is just any white bread dough; it should pass windowpane test;  let it rest for 3o minutes up to an hour before rolling it out as above.  

• 300 g white flour
• 168 g water
• 24 g olive oil
• 10 g sugar
• 6 g salt
• 3 g instant dry yeast (the reason for this is because this is meant to be a quick rising dough)
• a big bunch of shallots, chopped up
• some olive oil (and sesame oil if you wish)
• some more salt  

                                                               dough resting after shaping  

Let this rest for 3o minutes up to an hour again.   Bring a big pot of water to boil; THEN, place the steamer on top of the boiling water.  The dough will expand rapidly in steaming temperature.  After 5 minutes, turn the heat down to medium.  Boil another 7 minutes.  Total steaming time 12 minutes.   And there we have it:  

                                                       Chinese Shallots Steam Buns  

I can imagine diners in a northern Chinese tea parlour very happily ordering these shallots steam buns for their Sunday brunch, followed by a pot of tea over some gossip.   

Shiao-Ping  

p.s.  Lang, the first word of his full name, is his family name, which is not a common one among Chinese.  Lang, the second word of his name, is a completely different Chinese character which pronounces the same as the first character.   His name reads very poetic to a Chinese literary mind.  Many Mainland Chinese names today still retain that poetic-ness about them, whereas the names of Chinese from other parts of the world, especially, those from Taiwan, are as ... oh what should I say...; girls' names denoting beauty, virtue, chastity, etc, and boys' names effecting courage, loyalty, righteousness, and the like, are very common; and for both girls and boys, wealth and fortunes are a forever welcome theme for names.          

Last week, I received the book "100% Pain" by Eric Kayser that I had ordered. I had always wanted to try the recipe for his famous "Baguette Monge". First, I was surprised to see the note stating that all the recipes in the book have been tested on a bread machine and second that recipes for all his breads call for straight room temperature fermentation. Checking his website, I found a quote saying that his breads all go through a long fermentation, so being the tinkerer that I am, I decided not to follow his recipe verbatim but instead to use the same formulation (more or less) and modify the execution.

I have been experimenting making baguettes using the James MacGuire techniques that Shiao-Ping had introduced to TFL a couple of weeks ago and have found them simple and easy, resulting in a beatifully developed dough. The baguettes were very good but I thought the high hydration made shaping and scoring the baguettes difficult and the crumb, although light was not as open as I would have liked. MacGuire had warned about the same effects of high hydration on baguettes in his article in "The Art of Eating".

I have had good success with the Anis Bouabsa baguette recipe and techniques that David (dmsnyder) had adapted from Janedo. I found that the cold delayed fermentation helps develop a more chewy and open crumb and gives the bread a more complex flavor.

So, this past weekend, I decided to combine these favorite techniques and use them to make my version of Eric Kayser's "Baguette Monge". I will call it the "Kayser Baguette Monge Hybrid". Here is the formulation:

Kayser uses a Type 65 Flour so I chose a flour mix that approximate the original. The resulting protein content is around 12.5%. Note that although the French Flours have lower protein content US Flours, I read that most French bakers add Malted Barley Flour and Vital Wheat Gluten to their dough.

Kayser uses 58% hydration. I upped it to 72%.

- 100 Gms Liquid Levain (100% hydration)

- 300 Gms KAF AP Flour

- 150 Gms KAF Bread Flour

- 50 Gms KAF WWW Flour

- 345 Gms Water

- 1 Gm Instant Yeast

- 9 Gms Sea Salt

Mix the Levain with the Water then add the Flour Mix, Salt and Yeast. Mix by hand for 2 mins and follow the MacGuire stretching and folding in the bowl at 45 mins interval instead of 1 hr.

At the end of the folding, the dough should rise by 25%. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours. The dough should double in size.

Divide the dough into third and shape into boules. Rest seam side down for 1 hr.

Shape into baguettes with pointy ends and proof for 45 min. 

Score the loaves and bake in preheated 460 degrees F oven with steam for 10 mins.

Continue baking at 430 degrees F without steam for 12 mins.

Turn of heat and let baguettes rest for 5 mins in oven.

Remove baguettes and let cool on rack.

The baguettes crackled and popped while cooling on the rack and developed nice "shingles".

The grignes opened up nicely and the crust had a beautiful amber color and toasty caramel aroma. 

The oven spring was great and the cross section came out nice and round. The crumb was cream color and very open with different size "alveoles". The gelatinization made it slightly translucent.

The crust was thin and crackly with notes of roasted hazelnut and mocha. The crumb had a nice chewy mouthfeel with a tangy, creamy and sweet toasty wheat finish.

This was definitely the best baguette that I have baked to date , a real keeper.

And the quest for the Ultimate Baguette continues...

Don

There is a bread style in Hamelman's Bread (page 129, A Resting Loaf) that I've been trying to emulate:

This is at least the third time that I've tried to make it but still couldn't get it right.  The piece that is supposed to somehow separate from the main body of bread during baking always get stuck back to it.  Next time I will let the dough proof right side up to see if it makes any difference.  Anyway, for the record, this is my Guinness Multigrain Loaf.    

               With homemade strawberry jam and strawberries pre-soaked in champagne and caster sugar  

My formula  

• 260 g Guinness soupy starter @328% hydration
• 120 g multigrain bread flour by Laucke
• 300 g white bread flour
• 25 g olive oil
• 142 g water
• 1/2 tsp instand dry yeast
• 9 g salt  

dough hydration 76%  and dough weight 850 g  

Shiao-Ping