Soft Chinese Steamed Buns
You can enjoy this soft and fluffy Chinese buns with just basic ingredients in your pantry.
Prep Time 40 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Resting Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 55 minutes
Servings 8 buns
Ingredients
- 2 cup All purpose flour 1/4 cup for dusting
- 3/4 cup warm water
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant dry yeast
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
Instructions
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Add sugar and water in a small bowl and stir until sugar dissolved. Sprinkle over the yeast, whisk lightly and set aside for 5 minutes until the yeast starts to get foamy.
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In a mixing bowl, Combine flour, baking powder, salt. Add the oil and yeast-sugar-water mixture. Slowly stir to form a dough ball. At this stage the dough is still a little sticky.
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Transfer the dough to lightly floured work surface using the 1/4 cup flour. Incorporate the 1/4 cup flour little by little in the dough while kneading.
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Knead for 15 minutes until remaining flour is incorporated and the dough is smooth and elastic.
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Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl and coat the dough with little oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or damp cloth and allow to rest for 45 mins – 1 hour in a warm place until the dough is double in size.
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Punch down dough to pinch the air out, then turn into a lightly floured surface. Divide into 8 portion and roll the dough into a round ball. Put each ball on a wax paper square. Let stand covered until double in size, about 10-15minutes.
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Bring water to boil, then reduce to medium heat before placing the buns. Steam buns for 15-20 minutes.
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After steaming, turn of heat then let it sit for 5 minutes before lifting the lid, otherwise the buns might shrink because of sudden change in temperature.
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Enjoy our Chinese steamed buns plain or with pork barbecue and pickled veggies.
Recipe Notes
- If the dough doesn’t turned smooth after kneading, Cover the dough with plastic wrap or damp towel and let it rest for 15-30 minutes then knead the dough again until it become smooth then proceed to step #4.
- Always knead in lightly floured surface to avoid sticky dough.
- If you want to make bigger buns, Adjust the cooking time from 15 minutes to 25 minutes.
- Chinese Steamed Buns can be refrigerated for 3 days and frozen up to 1 month. Re-steam before serving.
- If you are using a steel steamer, wrap the lid of the steamer with a cloth to prevent the condensation water to drip in the steamed buns.
- If you are using a steel steamer, you can steam the buns into high to medium high heat. If you are using bamboo steamer, you can steam the buns into medium-low.
- The humidity affect the stickiness of dough. Continue to knead while incoporating more flour until it is smooth, elastic and not sticky anymore.