I was pleasantly surprised how these turned out. This is my Grandmas favorite bread, and since we haven't been able to take her to the store lately, I attempted to bake her some instead. I had left over red bean paste from making sesame balls for Kylie, so I turned it into a new baking project. It was delicious!
Ingredients:
2/3 cup Heavy Cream (at room temperature)
1 cup Milk (plus 1 tbsp, at room temperature)
1 large Egg (at room temperature)
1/3 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Cake Flour
3 1/2 cups Bread Flour
1 tbsp Active Dry Yeast
1 1/2 tsp Salt
Egg wash (whisk together 1 egg with 1 tsp water)
Simple Syrup (optional: 2 tsp of sugar dissolved in 2 tsp hot water)
Instructions:
In a mixer, add the heavy cream, milk, egg, sugar, cake flour, bread flour, yeast, and salt. Use the dough hook attachment, and turn on the mixer to “stir.” Let it go for 15 minutes, occasionally stopping the mixer to push the dough together. The dough should be moist, but not so sticky that it sticks excessively to the bowl or dough hook.
Cover the bowl with a damp towel and place in a warm spot for 1 hour.
Grease one loaf pan on all sides with butter. Also, line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
After an hour the dough should have risen, put the dough back in the mixer and stir for another 5 minutes to get rid of air bubbles. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface, and cut it in half. Set aside one half for the loaf, and cut the other half into 8 pieces for individual red bean buns.
For each bun, use about 2 tbsp of red bean paste. For a standard red bean bun, just roll one piece of dough into a ball, flatten with your hand or roll out to half inch thickness and place the red bean filling in the center. Pinch the dough closed around the red bean and place on your cookie sheet, seam-side down.
You can roll them like cinnamon buns, and then make strategic cuts with scissors to add a decorative element.
For the loaf, take the first half of dough and shape into a rectangle. Roll out to about ¾-inch thickness with a floured rolling pin, maintaining a rectangle shape. Now, take the red bean paste and spread over the center of the rectangle, leaving a few inches on either side of the rectangle and one inch along the top and bottom. The paste should be spread to about 1/8-inch thickness.
Fold over each side of the rectangle so a seam runs down the center of the dough. Pinch all the open edges closed.
Next, roll out the dough to flatten the seams and make the rectangle of dough roughly as large as it was when you started. Then, fold the dough into thirds. Roll it out into a rectangle once more.
Repeat the step of folding the dough into thirds, but this time, roll it out just so that the layers press together and the piece of dough is the length of the loaf pan. Make two lengthwise cuts in the dough so you have three segments. Braid the pieces with the layered sides facing up. This will make for a really nice pattern when it bakes up. Pinch the ends of the braided dough together and gently place into your buttered loaf pan.
Let the buns and the loaf proof for another hour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Brush the risen dough with egg wash. Bake the buns for 18-20 minutes and the loaf for 36-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush the bread with sugar water to give them a really great shine, sweetness, and color.
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