Chinese Buns

I know... I haven't been keeping up to date on my blogging lately. But I have a good excuse. I have a final coming up! Which meant that the little time I would love to spend cooking is being devoted to my studies. (I'm such a good student :P)

Anywho, I decided to busy my hands by baking bread. Apparently everyone's doing it. Why? It's fun! I really love the smell of the yeasty dough and the aroma of freshly baked bread diffuse throughout the entire house whenever I make bread. I used a melange of the recipes from: happyhomebaking and Evan's blog to make my buns. I couldn't decide if I wanted savoury or sweet buns... so in the end I just divided the dough and make both :)

The buns with the plain tops are filled with custard, the one with sesame seeds on it has peanut-sugar mixture, the one with coconut is filled with coconut + brown sugar. As you can see, there is also a savory bun with hotdogs jabbed into it, and a ham & spring onion bun (they smelled so good that I ended up eating 1/5th of that bun before I took this picture :P)

Not the most beautiful bun (certainly not as pretty as Evan's) but I was still proud of my attempt, and it tasted superb. Just like the ones you buy from the store! If you can't tell, I actually used vegetarian ham to make this bun... tasted pretty much like regular ham. Don't see why some people thing vegetarian stuff is wierd?

Ah! Just for my little sister. She loves the combination of coconut and brown sugar. She enjoyed snacking on this bun while my parents nibbled on the peanuty ones.

Overall, my experience with this recipe was good. The dough was a little more dense than I would have liked, but the taste more than made up for it. I suppose that the next time I try this recipe I'll proof it more and handle it less... that should make the bread more fluffy. (I probably played around with the dough to much... you know, deciding which shapes to make the buns and all :P) I just love bread kneading, it's just like playing with play-dough except that you get to eat your final product... what could be better?