Studio Ghibli Month: Red Bean Paste Buns-Spirited Away
Prep: Hour maybe 20 minutes Cook 20 Minutes
This weeks foray was my first into dough from scratch. From Spirited Away, we made the red bean paste buns and it was an experience. I borrowed a steamer from a coworker and got to play with yeast and more. Fun fact: Spirited Away is the concept of spirits or demons stealing humans away in the night.
Ingredients
2 2/5 cup of all purpose flour (300g, I used my fancy scale to sort this out)
40g sugar
1 1/2 tsp sugar tolerant (instant) yeast
180 ml warm milk (35 C) (On your own here, I give up) (You can also use 150 ml of water warmed too
1 tbs vegetable oil
pinch of salt
200 g red bean past filling (we just winged this. We had a can, we scooped from the can, and we just said ‘que sera sera’)
Prep
Get a pot and put it on low, low heat
Add the milk and use a thermometer to heat the milk to 35 C
Add to a large enough bowl with the flour, sugar, yeast, veggie oil, and salt.
Mix this around with a spoon or so (or a mixer with paddles for kneading on) before switching to your hands to knead the dough
Get everything worked in nice and good before setting it in a room temperature area for an hour for the dough to rise. What we did was we set the oven to 250 F and put a dish towel over the bowl. We set this on top of the oven to get the heat.
When about 20 minutes was left we added water to the steamer and set it to start steaming. I’ll cover this later, but you might want to think carefully about this step
After an hour, add like a tablespoon or 2 more of the flour and knead some more
When it seems like it’s not too rough and you’re praying what you’ve seen on Great British Baking Show is sufficient for judging it, break this up into about 6 little dough balls. Maybe 8 if you want it really small.
Use your fingers to flatten these out but make the edges thinner than the center. I started from the center and pushed/pinched outward until it seemed wide enough, that it could fold into a ball again
Spoon the red bean paste into the center and close it up nice and tight. Tighter than a convent if you can so nothing gets out, not even Satan.
Flip these over and shape into a dome as much as you can
Line the steamer bowl with parchment paper and learn from my mistake of not doing that
So here, we were supposed to place them, have the steamer off and let them prove for another 20 minutes. I didn’t read the instructions all the way through. So we just went straight to steaming for 20 minutes. This worked great! They still tasted good and were enjoyable but we won’t know what would have happened had we listened.
When they are done steaming, turn off the steamer and leave them in there for about 5 more minutes
Afterthoughts
These were delicious and using the milk was a great addition. This brought out a creamier taste in the buns. I was wanting to add butter to the dough but the milk helped with that creamy taste. This is the first I’ve ever had red bean paste and it was nice! I think it tastes like something I’ve had before, but I just can’t place it. I really enjoyed it. They were soft, and gooey and the paste was a sweet addition to the dough. Besides proving the dough, these were really fast and easy to make and a great addition to a meal.
