Steamed Pumpkin Buns - “金瓜馒头”

Most chinese today will take vegetarian food to celebrate 9 Emperors God. Some people they will take 9 days vegetarian food celebrating the big day. For me, as usual I will take 3 days of vegetarian food each year. Today is the last day of this 9 Emperors God Festival. I went to the temple to pray this morning with a friend of mine Ann-Ann. We go to breakfast together and back home I decided to make "金瓜馒头" Steamed Pumpkin Buns recipe shared by Ann-Ann for my teatime snack and supper. If there is extra left, I will keep it for breakfast tomorrow morning. For your information, this is my 2nd time making it. The first batch are all finished up by my kids before I could snap a pic..!!

I was so silly that I have done something wrong without realising it until the very last minute. I took out the pumpkin from my fridge cut out one big piece and straight I weight it according to the recipe 150gm (I hv forgotten to unskinned them before I weight it**). I washed, unskinned and cut it into smaller pieces, straight I put them into a small bowl and steamed it (I weight the pumpkin with it's skin on and after I unskinned and steamed it, the total weight of the smashed pumpkin is only 100gm - short of 50gm!!!) How??? The idea of adding more water to make up the weight just come into my mind, I added 30gm more water mixed with the smashed pumpkin, luckily it's only 30gm and not 50gm.

I can see the dough are too wet and very sticky...oh, is it because of the water I add?? and, I add some more flour after about 10 minutes of kneading...I know this time my pumpkin buns will not be as fluffy and soft as it use to be. Don't worry, the recipe I share here does produce soft and fluffy buns. But, make sure you don't repeat the mistakes I made here. Unskinned the pumpkin first before you weight it ~ lol!! Lesson learned**

I was so lucky, the buns turn out not as fluffy as usual but it's still acceptable soft. I think it will be better proof if I left it longer before I steamed it. As I was in the rush to fetch my kids at school, I just leave the ready buns under the sun for 10mins. It's better if I can leave it under the sun for couple of minutes longer. I love the pumpkin aroma of the freshly steamed buns in my kitchen. It's smells so yummy, overall the buns turn out a little bit chewy (that's surely because of the mistakes I made) but to my surprise, it remain soft till now. The buns were steamed around 12 noon just now. Not too bad tho!!

Recipe adapted from Ann-Ann's Blog 人生加油站

Ingredients

(A)
Instant Yeast (酵母) - 11gm
Sugar (糖) - 1 tsp
Warm Water (温水) - 150gm

(In a deep mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients above and let it proof for 10-15mins. Set aside)
先把材料A搅均匀，放置待发10分钟。（要用比较大的杯，以上的材料会由半杯胀发到一满杯）

(B)
Hong Kong Flour (包粉) - 500gm
Sugar (糖) - 8 tbsp
Oil (食油) - 8 tbsp
Salt (盐) - 1/4 tsp (少许)
Smashed Steamed Pumpkin (金瓜/南瓜蒸软成泥) - 150gm

Method:

Knead the ingredient (B) until it is mix together then pour in ingredient (A). Knead all the ingredients into a soft dough (20-30mins).
Let it rest for 10mins before divided the dough into 16-18 equal big portion. Roll the dough into a big trangular and roll it into spring roll shapes and lined it with 2"x5" patch paper. (I let it prove for another 10-15mins under the hot sun, covered the dough with cling wrap or wet cloth to prevent it from dries up while proofing)
Steam it in hot boiling steamer for 12-15mins.

AMY