Matcha Mantou Rosettes
I’ve long wanted to try making steamed buns. Char Siu Bao are a long time favourite of mine from my childhood. Since I haven’t made anything like this before I decided that I’d make the plain buns first to test the recipe I found in a book called Mooncakes and Milk Bread. These are IDY and I think I’ll try to convert them to sourdough eventually once I get the hang of the steaming and what to expect of the dough as it ferments. I purchased a bamboo steamer in order to makes these.
Makes 6
150 g AP flour
25 g sugar
½ tsp IDY
¼ tsp baking powder
⅛ tsp coarse salt
80 g 110°F water
This is a very stiff dough, I mixed by hand and kneaded by hand. I added the matcha powder to half of the dough once the gluten was moderately developed.
The two balls of dough were allow to ferment until they doubled in size. They were then each divided into six equal pieces and formed into tight small boules.
Prepare six 4” squares of parchment paper.
After a brief rest each boule was rolled out into a circle about 2.5-3” in diameter. Each circle of dough is cut in half. Then arrange four half circles of dough in a straight line, overlapping by 1/2-1.5” with the straight side of the half circle aligned. Roll up each half into a tight roll to form rosettes. Arrange rosettes on the parchment squares. Repeat with the remaining half rounds. If you prepared two colours of dough, alternate the colours when arranging the half circles of dough.
Cover the rosettes of dough with a damp towel. Set them in a warm spot until they are 1.5 times larger, 30-45 mins.
Prepare your steamer setup and bring water to a boil. Working in batches if necessary, arrange buns in the bamboo steamer spacing 2” apart. Steam over boiling water for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave the buns in the covered steamer for 5 more minutes to prevent collapsing. (I left them in the steamer and on the same stove element turned off). Remove the buns from the steamer and allow them to cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Buns can be kept in an airtight container (a resealable bag works great) at room temperature for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Room temperature buns can be reheated in the microwave for 15 to 20 seconds or steamed for about 2 minutes, until soft and warmed through. Reheat frozen buns by steaming until soft and warmed through, 10 to 15 minutes.
Comments
Oh my, so delicate and pretty! Subtle and sophisticated shape and colors, very inspired as always.
Thank you AG. I used the matcha mostly for colour rather than flavour, so the matcha is nice and subtle. I’m pleased and I now make these myself.
Benny
I would definitely be interested if you come up with a sourdough modification. I have that book but haven’t made much from it yet. I think I made the red bean mooncakes and the thousand layer mooncakes. The red bean ones were good but the thousand layer ones had an odd taste, probably from the large quantity of shortening.
I borrowed the book from the library and copied a few of the recipes I thought I’d like to try, this being one of them. I have just mixed the sourdough version of this recipe, hopefully it works well. I’ve prepared a BBQ pork filling and will make these as char siu bao if the dough looks good. 🤞🤞
I'm still cracking the code for sourdough steamed bread. They are not as light and fluffy as yeast-raised ones. I wish you success!
This shaping style is also one of my favorites for mantou, so simple yet so elegant and you've upped the beauty by using two colored doughs. Fantastic!
Thank you Pal, have you had any luck and any tips for the SD steamed bread? My attempt yesterday was a disaster. I’m unsure what went wrong exactly, but I wonder if the baking powder had a negative effect on the leavening of the SD levain. No idea really though what went wrong, but the dough didn’t rise well and with steaming became weirdly translucent.
Now that you've told me, I am starting to think if baking powder could be the culprit. My sourdough mantou in the past were extremely dense and still feels like raw dough even after 30 minutes of steaming, time that would have been plenty to cook regular ones.
However, in Northern China, they have sourdough mantou (laomian mantou) that is meant to be dense and chewy instead of light and fluffy since it is a staple food there. One thing to note is they add some sort of alkali to the dough and not baking powder, mainly to neutralize the acidity, with the effect of a minor secondary leavening.
I’m wondering if I need to experiment and do a dough without any alkali in it whatsoever and compare to one with an alkali. I also wonder about baking powder vs baking soda as the alkali, obviously the baking soda won’t have any leavening effect but I wonder how much the baking powder actually does.
On the other hand, I might also just try again and use a hybrid dough spiked with some IDY.
Benny
Nice looking buns Benny.
I bet they have a nice mellow taste and a soft texture. I'm looking forward to hearing about the integration of the meat.
I couldn't help noticing the
Sunbeam Yellow(my bad) orange colour "Rolls Royce" in the background ;-)Tony
Thanks Tony. Yes these were very very nice and with matcha just gave it some extra complexity without adding too much matcha flavour. The texture was nice and soft and it was fun to do this shaping.
Yes I am enjoying but still learning to use my Ankarsrum Assistent and I love the orange colour, it is so bright and cheerful.
Yours look really pretty! I never thought about making them this way. I've done steamed buns a few times, once with filling. The filling was hard to get the right amount, I recommend a food processor if it's too chunky. But I think I'll try making rosettes next time. Now I want to add beet juice and chocolate to the dough for a pretty effect. Yet another thing for my "To Bake" list. I'll have to get another steamer though, the lid for my old one was glass and it didn't like being dropped. :(
Thank you Sugarowl. I like the beet juice and chocolate ideas. I was also thinking ground black sesame, sweet potato, brown sugar, spinach juice and powdered freeze dried strawberries as other ideas. The rosettes are easy to do and yet so pretty.
Do you have a good recipe for sourdough Mantou?
Benny
i don't, sorry. Your flower technique is the same as with fondant. My recipe is pretty close to yours above with baking powder. But now I'm thinking freeze dried strawberries and chocolate since Valentines day is coming up. I just bought freeze dried strawberries not long ago, and I found my metal steamer. So if I can figure out how to get my droopy sourdough to become less droopy I'll try these flavors this week. I'm just better at kneading instant yeast bread than I am with sourdough. I tend to knead everything as if it were playdoh. :)
I look forward to hearing and seeing your strawberry chocolate Mantou, you are right just in time for Valentine’s Day.
Tony (CalBeachBaker) sent me this link to a sourdough Mantou https://breadtopia.com/chinese-lotus-leaf-bao/ which I’d seen but long forgot about. I think I will have another try with a sourdough Mantou with that or something similar.
Benny
So I tried to make them with your recipe last week. They came out very wrong. Apparently I had forgotten that IDY meant Instant Dry Yeast. Oops! Ha ha! I did blitz freeze dried strawberries, but don't leave them until the next day, the humidity got them and were not easy to work in the dough like my dark chocolate powder was. My dough was very sticky, not sure what went wrong other than the IDY thing. The strawberry flavor did come through, though that half of the dough was speckled since the strawberries clumped. The chocolate flavor was okay, not as strong as the strawberry one. I may just make two doughs next time and mix the strawberries and chocolate in the hot water first to better incorporate it. I really want a bbq pork steamed bun right about now.
Sorry to hear that yours didn't work out. Our flours are different of course and perhaps a lower hydration would help.
In the meantime, I've also posted some gua boa that I did last week using sourdough that you could also spike with some IDY if you want to speed things up a bit.
Benny
I re-did it last week with a bit more flour. It worked nicely. I made just the simple roll shape, so no pictures. I had checked another recipe that used the same amount of water but with more flour. So I just set the extra amount aside and used it as needed. When I get around to doing the rosettes I'll take some pictures. I currently have a loaf rising and another loaf planned, but this weekend I'll definitely try the rosettes again.
I’m glad your adjustments made successful bao, that’s great news. I hope you enjoyed eating them too.
Benny