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Thursday, April 21, 2011

红豆烙饼 Red bean pan fried bun and a blogger award


I have been feeling restless lately and  so had to  head back to the kitchen to get  my bearings.   When the feeling persisted, I get plenty of reasons to try out new stuff or recreate old recipes. Things got out of hand, and I ended up feeding neighbors, friends and music teachers . I was having too much fun to stop.

Here, I made some Chinese red  bean buns, the kind that goes best with a bowl of soya bean drink. Not the usual kind of breakfast buns, because they are made with sourdough starter, as this sourdough bun offers a chewy bite when freshly baked  and mellows down into a denser but  more 'compliant' bun over the next few days. The good thing about sourdough starter is that, due to its active elements, food made with sourdough has excellent keeping quality and stays fresh  longer, even in warm and humid Singapore.

The  starter dough will be posted in another post for those who wish to get, er, started. 
Simply delicious just off the pan or to keep, freeze in freezer-bags. To reheat, thaw frozen pancakes in the fridge overnight, completely wrapped in aluminum sheet. Pop into a toaster, aluminum wrapper and all, for about 10 minutes. Remove aluminum and toast again for 2 minutes. Now, breakfast will be hot, crisp and ready to go !

Enough said. Here's my pan  fried version of red bean buns.

Makes 8 red bean pan fried buns
Dough :
500g starter sourdough
50g milk
150g plain flour
50g fine sugar
1/8 t salt
300 g red bean paste

Bring sourdough to room temperature and allow it to ferment.

Mix dry ingredients well in a bowl.

Knead sourdough, milk, plain flour, sugar and salt into a dough, 10 minutes, until elastic and non sticky ( I got my princess to do the kneading - princess bread machine, that is )

Rest dough for 5 minutes.

Divide red bean, dough to 8 portions.

Roll dough to disc, 8-10 cm in diameter or just sufficient to wrap up the red bean paste.

Wrap red bean with dough then let  bun ferment for 5 minutes.

Press the buns flat and ferment for another 10-15 minutes.

Pan fry on a warm pan ( low heat ) un-oiled, until both sides are golden brown.


And finally -



I would like to thank  Happy Home Baking for this award and hope to  generate more interesting materials. Good things are meant to be shared and I hope to pass this award to the following bloggers who make oh so inspiring food :



To accept this award , you  are to :

1. Post link back to the person that gave you the award
2. Share 7 random things about yourself
3. Award 15 recently discovered blogs
4. Drop them a note and tell them about it.


The 7 random things about me are :

1 )  My first microwave oven disaster involved an exploded egg and I spent a  night digging egg bits of egg off the oven.

2 ) Whenever the occasional comments do come, I have no idea how I should respond.

3 ) My first baking experience was chopping  7 kg of almonds so that volunteer bakers can bake almond cakes for sale.

4 ) I was called O-nee lady because I always make yam paste dessert. I have since learnt a few more local desserts.

5 ) I love to eat but won't admit it.

6 )I am not bilingual and read Mandarin recipes using fuzzy logic.

7)All the pictures in this blog are taken by hubby who is a camera buff.

14 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this lovely award! Your buns look very delicious! I wish I can have it for breakfast too. I'm so glad to know someone who is an expert in making yam paste dessert (which is our family's favourite). ;)

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  2. Aw, thank you for the award! That is so sweet of you!

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  3. it's heartwarming having a husband who is supportive of your passion...and of course u reciprocate by making yummy eats for his happy belly! hahah the red bean buns look great with the filling oozing out!

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  4. Oh, wow! This so cool. Thanks for including my Blog (ShopCookMake)! I'm new in the blogosphere, so definitely I feel happy that other bloggers like my blog. I'm enjoying reading your blog!

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  5. 谢谢你的奖项与喜爱~O(∩_∩)O

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  6. Wow this looks like a really simple recipe and a good alternative to baking/steaming! Especially since I've sourdough starter hibernating in my fridge ;p

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  7. Now look at what you’ve done … you have me seriously craving for a piece of this....yum yum

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  8. Wow, I think this is not easy. Good job!

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  9. hi there! thank you for the award. wow i remember making something like this using a Japanese recipe when i started blogging.

    keep up the good work :D

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  10. Oh! I like this buns...we used to order in a local restaurant, yours look very yummie...thanks for the recipe. Hope you are having a great week...by the way, congrats on the award :-)

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  11. Hi,

    I'm new in baking, love this recipe once i saw it :) may i know what is "starter sourdough"? Is it a flour name? Can i get it from the baking store? Also fine sugar is not same as castor sugar, is it?

    Thank you!
    -Karen

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  12. Hi, castor sugar is finer than fine sugar,and best used when sugar needs to be totally incorporated/dissolved with the batter. It is more expensive, as a result, but eradicates the crunchy' texture that coarser sugar gives.

    As for sourdough starter, I am afraid you can't buy it from stores. It is a lengthy ( 7 days ) process where wild yeast in the atmosphere is captured for leavening ( raising ) bread dough. A portion of sourdough, or old dough, is set apart, maintained by feeding the wild yeast with new flour while you use parts of it for actual bread making. This way of bread making means the starter dough can be as old as several years provided you maintain the starter consistantly. To get a better idea of this ancient method, see http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm

    The advantage is that you save on the cost of buying commmercial yeast and the lactic acid in the sourdough offers bread made this way good keeping quality.

    If you are interested in how my starter dough is made, see http://cookwithnobooks.blogspot.com/2011/04/sourdough-starter-how-to.html

    A simpler 'cheat' version, before most enthusiasts graduate to real sourdough is to leaven bread using the preferment method. This only takes one extra day to do, and the effect can be just as delicious. See here http://cookwithnobooks.blogspot.com/2011/02/rustic-bread-using-preferment.html for a better idea.

    Hope this helps.

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  13. Hi,

    Thanks for the links, will look into it and try to prepare according to your steps :)

    Enjoy reading your blog ;) keep up the good work!
    -Karen

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