A Blossoming Bun 菊花包

Gabriel refused to eat lunch prepared by the aunty at Learning Vision.  For the whole week, during lunch time he sat there together with his classmate, they ate their lunch but not him :( The teacher told me, please bring something from home for him! Really headache plus heartache...when I went to pick him up at noon he always hungry. 

Recently I saw someone baked a nice flower bread and I think it is a good presentation to attract Gabriel to eat. I'm using 爱生活,爱厨房:菊花包 recipe with changes. Instead of pumpkin, I used sweet potato as the main ingredient.

 Add natural sweetness to the bun by using various type of dry berries.

Make 8 big buns.

The sweet potato dough is a bit sticky compared with the white dough, is good to make a harder sweet potato dough for easy handling.

Wrap up the dough and roll into a ball.

Flatten the ball to 0.5cm thickness.

Cut the side of the dough with knife and flip the cut portion as shown.

It was suppose to be a smooth bun, however, my son woke up earlier than expected, I took a while to accompany him and came back to discover the dough may be too dry. I sprayed a bit of water on bun before steaming and the end result was...rough rough rough surface :( 

Recipe adapted from 爱生活,爱厨房:菊花包with changes 

A. Sweet Potatoes Dough Ingredients:

3 medium sweet potatoes (about 100g)

200g plain flour

2g instant dry yeast

some sugar (option)

B.White Dough Ingredients:

250g plain flour
2g instant dry yeast
20g icing sugar
150ml warm milk
15g vegetable shortening (option)

various type of dry berries

Steps:

1. For A. Steam sweet potatoes until soft, mash the sweet potatoes, let it cool before adding yeast. (No need to completely cool as warm dough is perfect condition for yeast) Mix well.

2. Add flour to the mixture, knead until forming a smooth dough. Let it proof for 1 hour.

3. For B. Add sifted flour, sugar and yeast, mix well. Add warm milk until mixture able to form a dough. Knead until the dough is smooth. Add shortening and knead until surface is a bit greasy. Let it proof for 1 hour.

4. Press out the air in the doughs, roll it into long strip (do the same for both doughs)

5. Divide the dough into 8 or 9 small doughs. Roll the white dough into ball and flatten the dough, place the sweet potato dough in middle of the white dough. Wrap up and slightly press the ball into 0.5 cm thickness.

6. Make few cuts at the side, turn the cut portion upwards, place a bit of sweet potato dough in the middle, add the various dry berries as desire. Let it proof for 20 mins.

7. Preheat the steamer, steam for 8 mins. (After 5 mins open the cover a bit and continue with the steaming) Wait for another 5 mins before remove the cover. 

A blossoming bun, you like it?

Soft and fluffy bun!

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #5 : Fruity March (March 2011) hosted by Jess of Bakericious