While I was in Korea over winter break, I got this amazing baking book by Young Mo Kim, THE man of the Korean Bakers Association. This book is full colored and has a range of delicious, ornate pastries and cakes including the ones you find in asian bakeries with custard and red bean filling inside.
I had the urge to try baking something different last week so I made my first brave attempt at baking asian buns. I made one batch of sweet bread dough to make three different types of buns -- custard filling, red bean filling, and some with sweet crumb topping.
I mixed all the ingredients and kneaded, pounded the dough for about 15 minutes manually (per instructions in the book) and my arms almost fell off so I think next time, I'll just use the KitchenAid mixer. The result was just okay. The bread was not as soft and moist as I had hoped. The custard filled one was my favorite because the custard gave the bun that extra moisture it needed.
Next time, I think I will try a couple of things differently:
1. use KitchenAid mixer to knead the dough more thoroughly
2. use a combination of cake flour and bread flour as the book suggests rather than just all-purpose flour
3. find a good place to proof the dough (needs a constant 28 deg C environment.. perhaps a space heater and a bowl of water in a box will do?)
4. put more filling in the buns!
