I have always made bao with filling but have never really bothered too much with the bread portion of the bao. There are many types of bao bun out there - mantou or the Chinese kong bak baos. The bao process itself is a lot more involved than I expected, such as over-proofing (which makes them dense), wrinkly or pock-marked skins, yellow-ness, and collapsing. These two sources discuss the problems and solutions in detail:
1. Red House Spice: https://redhousespice.com/steamed-bao-buns/
- Type of flour influences more fluffy and less chewy. Bao flour and cake flour have similar protein levels except bao flour is bleached.
- Extended kneading leads to a white colour and good kneading skills mean a smoother skin (ideally, 5 mins in mixer and rest by hand)
- proofing: double in size - timing depends on ambient temp so it can be anything from 40 to 90 mins. The second proofing should only take about 15 minutes.
- removing air, this affects the smooth skin: Beat down to remove the air and shape the dough.
- Dough collapsing (has never happened to me). Apparently, turning the fire off and waiting, adding sugar or vinegar to the boiling water don't help. What does help is not rolling the dough too thin and having a drier filling (so the moisture doesn't seep into the dough). She even recommends starting from cold water, which I have never ever heard of before! All the blogs I've read all talk about steaming from water on a rolling boil as that gives the instant lift.
2. What to cook today (mantou): https://whattocooktoday.com/soft-fluffy-asian-steamed-buns-every-time.html Additional notes not covered in the previous link are:
- Sugar helps yeast but too much sugar can inhibit yeast growth
- If using KitchenAid, mix for 5 minutes after the dough comes together. Add salt and mix again until smooth. Rest for only 15 mins before shaping the dough. This is resting to make it easier to work with, not proofing as it shouldn't rise.
- Use room temp or cold milk so that the buns don't start proofing while being shaped. If they do, store the proofed buns in the fridge until everyone is ready.
- After the usual tucking of seams underneath and cup shaping with palms (to make the buns tall instead of spreading out after steaming), an additional step for mantou is to roll the dough balls on the table until you get a smooth ball. Dab the surface of each bao with milk to make I make it smooth. The surface is probably less important for me if I'm making bao
- Proofing after the shaping, allow to proof to about 50% of original size, approx 10 to 15 mins. Dough sld feel light and airy and not dense. Finger test: push gently and it should stay indented for a while but must spring back. If it springs back immediately, it's not proofed enough; if it doesn't, it's over proofed. Beat in and reshape and re-proof again. Steaming over-proofed dough will make them collapse and come out dense.
- Wrap the cover of the steam with a cloth
- For smooth surface of the buns, steam at low-medium heat and allow the steam to escape
- After steaming, turn off the flame and let the buns rest for 5 minutes (so buns don't wrinkle or collapse)
- Over-proofing can also cause the buns to collapse. So will too much filling inside.
- After shaping, skins hv to be smooth otherwise they will come out wrinkly.
Update: Tried out the bao skin tips here in the red bean bao.
No comments:
Post a Comment