Butter Milk Pau

Growing up my favorite filled paus were those with butter milk filling. Now they have  become my Daughter G's favorite too. She would eat the pau skin first and leave out the filling to slowly savour. 'Saving the best for last', she reasoned.  The butter milk filling is made of butter and copious amount of milk powder - very rich and milky. I've search high and low for the filling recipe and have tried a couple but they were not of the consistency I was looking for. This one comes close in taste but still too wet . What I'm looking for is dry-ish and a little crumbly. Oh well, the search continues.

Butter Milk Pau
Ingredients:

Butter Milk Filling
(recipe adapted from I cook I bake I love here)

60g Castor Sugar

60g Butter

100g Milk Powder

20g Corn Flour

40g Fresh Milk

Pau Skin
(recipe adapted from Cooking Crave here)

130 g warm water

5 g instant yeast
300g pau flour
80g icing sugar
30g oil

2"x2" pachment papers for lining the paus

Method:

To make butter milk filling:

Beat all the ingredients of the filling together until smooth. Leave the mixture in the fridge overnight to let it firm up so that it is easier to fill the pau skin with.


To make & fill pau skin:

In a big bowl slowly mix the yeast together with warm water and a tablespoon of icing sugar (from the 80g icing sugar). Cover, set aside and let it prove for 45mins - mixture will bubble up and expand.

Sieve flour and icing sugar together into a big mixing bowl. Combine with the proofed yeast mixture. Add in oil. Start kneading the dough with hand. The dough will be a bit sticky at first, knead until it's soft and smooth. It takes approximately 20-25mins. Cover the bowl with wet cloth or cling wrap and let the dough rest for 15mins.

After 15mins, the dough are ready to be wrapped with its fillings. Cut and weigh the dough into 30g balls.

Take a piece of dough ball, flatten out, make sure the edges are thinner than the centre part. Spoon the fillings on the centre of the skin, fold, pleat and pinch to seal. Put the filled pau on a piece of parchment paper and cover with a damp cloth to prevent it from drying up. Once all the paus are filled, let them rest for about 30-45mins. Do not let them proof longer than the specified time to avoid wrinkly skin. Steam paus on high heat for 10-12 minutes. 

Steamed Pumpkin Buns

I had seen these bright orangey steamed buns from Wendy of Table of 2 and bookmarked the recipe sometime ago. I had actually forgotten about it until I saw this recipe again shared by  Lena  in her blog Frozen Wings. I knew then that I had to try out the recipe at last, lest I forget again.  Just like how Lena decribed them, they were indeed soft & fluffy and sweet, wonderful eaten just plain without any fillings. Somehow mine were not as bright orange as Wendy's or Lena's but it didn't really matter, they were really good and I just couldn't have enough of these.  As with all steamed buns, they were best eaten warm. A keeper recipe, this.

I am submitting this entry to 'Aspiring Bakers #8 - Bread Seduction' hosted by sweet Jasmine of  'The Sweetylicious' (Details here).


Steamed Pumpkin Buns
Ingredients
60gm sugar
90gm pumpkin puree
1tsp instant dry yeast
150gm pau flour (or use superfine flour)
1tsp double action baking powder
10gm butter

Method:
1. Combine sugar, pumpkin puree and yeast.
2. Combine pau flour, double action baking powder and butter and mix to form crumbs.
3. Pour (1) into (2) and mix to form dough.
4. Knead dough until smooth and no longer sticky.
5. Cover and let dough proof in a warm place until double in size.
6. After proofing, punch down the dough and knead for 2 mins and divide dough into 8 pieces.
7. Take a piece of dough, mould it round then flaten into an oblong. Slowly roll up like swiss roll and put it on a piece of parchment paper. Repeat for the remaining pieces of dough.
8. Cover and let buns proof for 2nd time for another 45 mins.
9. Steam on high heat for 12 mins.