Red Bean Paste Steamed Buns 豆包

I loved red bean paste steamed buns when I was a child. Now it is my favourite Chinese pastry to make. We eat them as part of breakfast. They can be stored in the freezer and be good for about 2 months. You can reheat them with a steamer or in a microwave oven (power level 80 for 1-2 minutes, time varies based on the type of your microwave oven). I use a breadmaker to make the dough and an electric steamer for steaming. It is relatively easy to make comparing to many other pastries once you have these tools.

This recipe is mostly translated from its Chinese version originally from : 奶香红豆包

Ingredients:

All purpose flour: 3 cups
Warm water: 1 cup
Milk: 1tbsb
vegetable oil or melted butter: 1 tbsb
sugar: 2 tsbs
yeast: 1 and 1/2 tsb
salt: 1/8 tsb
red bean paste filling: about 1/4 bag

Steps:

Mix warm water, sugar and yeast, let it sit for 5-8 minutes so that the yeast can do its thing later.
Add flour, milk, oil/melted butter and salt to breadmaker, set it to make dough. On my machine (Black & Decker All-in-One Automatic Breadmaker), it is option #8. Let it knead the dough for about 15 minutes.
Take the dough out. Divide it into 32 pieces.
Fill the bun. Roll the small dough until it is somewhat like a ball. Then press it to a round shape. Fill the red bean paste. We got ours at T and T supermarket. They are usually with the Japanese green tea stuff. You can of course make your own red bean paste fillings as well.
Shape the bun. Bring all the sides to the centre and seal the bun. Turn it upside down, gently press on it and shape it a bit to make it round. It is hard to describe so here is our video on how to fill and shape a red bean paste bun.
Place them on a steamer, let the buns sit in room temperature for about 40 minutes until they are about twice their size. Then steam for 18-20 minutes. When the program is finished. Wait 5 minutes before lifting the lids to avoid bumpy skin the buns.