Gai Mei Bao or Chinese Cocktail/ Coconut Buns - We Knead To Bake #38

  

   This month  (April 2016 ) we baked    Chinese Cocktail / Coconut Buns or Gao Mei Bao.

    This bun has its origins in Hong Kong and is a sweet bun that is filled with a buttery, milky sweet coconut paste. This bun was supposedly created some time in the 1950s in Hong Kong, when the proprietors when the owners of a local bakery were left with quite a few unsold but perfectly good buns.

    The enterprising owners apparently ground them up with sugar to make a filling which was put into freshly baked buns the next day. Talk about a creative solution to re-inventing leftovers!

 

   While the original buns were made with filling made only from left over buns and sugar, more creative bakers eventually added more flavour to the new buns by adding coconut, butter and milk to the filling. This has now become the accepted filling for these Chinese Cocktail/ Coconut Buns.

     The “Cocktail” in the name is thought to be a comparison of the rather ‘interesting’ mixture of unusual filling ingredients in the buns to a bartender’s mixture of exotic ingredients that go into creating a cocktail!!

   For the filling, you could use desiccated coconut in the filling but if you can find fresh coconut (even the frozen kind), I’d say go for it because it does make a whole lot of difference. These Buns are typically topped with two stripes and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.

   While they’re quite easy to make, you need to make sure the filling is sealed well inside the dough. Otherwise, the seams will open up when the buns rise and the butter in the filling will leak out during baking which is not at all a desirable thing.

Some recipes call for these buns to be brushed with a sugar or honey glaze as soon as they come out of the oven, but I left that out because I didn’t want these Buns any sweeter.

    If you want to use the glaze, mix together about half a tablespoon each of caster sugar and hot water for the sugar glaze or a tablespoon of honey and half a tablespoon of water for the honey glaze.

Here’s a video which demonstrates how to make these buns - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydca4A3be0E

Gai Mei Bao or Chinese Cocktail/ Coconut Buns

(Adapted from http://thewoksoflife.com/2015/07/coconut-buns-cocktail-buns/)

Ingredients:

For the Bread Dough:

2/3 cup warm milk

1 large egg

1/4 cup sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tbsp corn-starch

1 tsp instant yeast

3/4 tsp salt

For the Filling:

50 gm butter, soft at room temperature

1 1/2 tbsp caster sugar

1 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1/8 cup milk powder

1/3 cup fresh grated coconut

For the Topping :

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

25 butter, soft at room temperature

2 tsp caster sugar

A little milk (or egg wash)

1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds for sprinkling

Method:

First make the bread dough. Put all the ingredients listed under bread dough into a processor bowl (or knead by hand) and knead together until you have a soft and smooth dough that is just short of sticky. Knead in a little more flour if your dough is sticky.

Shape it into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, turning the dough so it is well coated with oil. Cover loosely and let it rise till double in volume. This should take about an hour to one and half hours.

In the meantime, prepare both the filling and the topping. For the filling, mix together all the ingredients into a paste and keep aside. Similarly, mix together all the ingredients (not the milk and sesame seeds) for the topping into a smooth paste. Transfer this to a piping bag.

Once the dough has risen well, turn it out onto your work surface and lightly sprinkle with flour. Knead the dough a few times to deflate it and then divide it into 6 equal portions.  Working with one piece of dough at a time, flatten the dough out into a rough oval about 4” by 3”. 

Put about a tablespoon of the filling (1/6^th portion) in the middle and then pinch together the two long edges of the oval over the filling and seal well, tucking the ends in to make a smooth oval shaped bun with rounded ends. Make sure the buns have been sealed well or the filling will leak out during baking and end up sitting in pools of melted butter!

Place the buns on a lined baking tray and cover loosely. Let them rise a bit for about 45 minutes. Brush the buns with milk (or egg wash if you use it). Now cut the tip off the piping bag (a small hole is good) and pipe two lines of the topping across the length of the buns . Also sprinkle some of the sesame seeds on top of each bun.

Bake them at 180C (350F) for about 20 to 25 minutes till done and golden brown. Brush them with a sugar or honey glaze, if you would like to, as soon as they come out of the oven. Let them cool on racks. Serve warm or at room temperature with coffee or tea, or as a snack.


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