Green Tea Buns

I finally made these green tea buns this morning. I bought a small bottle of green tea powder from Phoon Huat some time ago, without knowing what to do with it. Subsequently, I came across this pack of azuki bean paste during my regular visit to Daiso. Without any hesitation, I bought it right away...with my mind conjuring up the idea of green tea buns with the red bean paste as fillings. Both items where left untouched for quite some time as I was merrily baking other stuff from my long list of "to do" bakes ;)

I found a green tea bun recipe from the cookbook "Bread Magic". However, the bread is a little too time consuming to make...u'll need to make the bread dough, and then another smaller portion of bread dough as topping, i.e. to be wrapped around the main dough. As I couldn't afford to spend too much time on this, I simply followed the basic sweet dough recipe from the same book and added in 1 tablespoon of green tea powder. I didn't know whether this would affect the outcome of the bread, but since the ingredients to be used are relatively cheap and available, I felt I could take the risk without much regret!


I left the bread machine to do the kneading and let the dough rise at room temperature. Shaping the dough was quite easy, as I made most of them into round buns. I also tried adding sesame seeds on a few buns just to have some variation.

Then, I attempted to make a few twisted buns. The effect was not very nice though...this is the best out of the 3 that I did ;)

The buns turned out to be rather soft...although I couldn't taste the green tea flavour; and the red bean paste was slightly too sweet for my liking.

This is one of the better photos I have taken so far. I like the effect of the rounded bun and how it stand out from those buns at the background =)

Note: The buns didn't taste good after leaving them overnight. Had to warm them before serving...otherwise the bread tasted a little dense and "doughy". Not sure whether it was due to the green tea powder or the red bean paste?? Will remove the recipe which I had posted here yesterday.

I received a few requests for this green tea buns recipe be posted, despite the fact that I wasn't sure why the bread didn't keep well. I have now posted the recipe below so as not to disappoint those who are keen to give it a try.


Ingredient
(makes about 9 buns)

330g bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoon milk powder
60g caster sugar
120ml water
10g instant yeast
1 egg
40g butter
1 tablespoon green tea powder
some red bean paste for filling
some white sesame seeds

Method:

1. Place water, egg, butter, followed by caster sugar, salt, bread flour, milk powder, green tea powder and yeast into the pan of the bread machine. Set to Dough function.
2. When the machine completes the kneading cycle (20mins) remove dough from the bread pan, let it proof in room temperature in a mixing bowl, covered with cling wrap. Allow the dough to proof for 60 mins or until double in bulk. Alternatively, you can leave the machine to complete the full Dough cycle (knead and proofing) which takes 1hr 30mins.
3. Take out the dough and punch out the gas produced. Divide the dough into 50g portions. Shape into rounds and let rest for about 10 mins.
4. Flatten rounds and add fillings as desired. Shape into rounds or as desired. Arrange dough in a greased or lined pan or use paper liners. Let rest for about another 30 mins. If desired, top doughs with sesame seeds. Bake for about 15 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 degC.