How To Make Delicious Coconut Cream Buns

I do not know if anyone is the same as me. When I was a child in the bakery, what I must buy is coconut cream buns. It is too delicious when the middle of the bread matches the sweet cream. Who can resist the temptation of cream?

A couple of days ago I saw the buns again, so I did it myself at home. When do it yourself, you can use the best cream to make it. Of course, it take the best taste for you. The fluffy and delicious bread is filled with rich light cream. What an absolute golden combination! If you want to find other drinks for this sweet recipe, you must try our kumquat lemon tea for you.

What Are Coconut Cream Buns?

Chinese Coconut Cream Buns, also known as “忌廉包” in Cantonese, are a type of sweet bread originating from Hong Kong. The buns have a soft, spongy texture and are filled with a sweet and creamy filling made with milk, butter, and sugar.

The top of the bun is coated with shredded coconut or sesame seeds for added texture and flavor. Because the cream buns are often sprinkled with shredded coconut, they are also called “coconut cream buns”. Some bakeries will also add some strawberries to the cream buns to make them beautiful. That’s call “strawberry cream coconut bun”.

Cream buns are common in bakeries in Hong Kong, usually as an afternoon tea-time snack or a snack. The coconut cream bun’s calories are very high. If the cream is made with hydrogenated vegetable oil, it will even contain a lot of trans fat. So cream buns are not suitable for regular consumption even if it is very delicious.

When Does Coconut Cream Go Bad?

Since cream buns incorporate a large amount of cream and cream stored at room temperature tends to allow bacteria to proliferate. The Hong Kong Centre for Food Safety (CFS) issued a guideline in 2012 advising that cream buns should be discarded after four hours at room temperature.

How To Make Coconut Cream Buns?

Step 1

According to the different absorbency of the bread flour used by each person, please increase or decrease the amount of water, and finally the dough slightly sticky hands, but the dough will not be soft and collapsed state can be. You can add less water first, then add less water when you think it should add more water. Please don’t add more water at first.

Add enough water to knead the dough with the oil later method (you can see the difference with the oil first method at the bottom) until it is complete. Measure the temperature of the dough after kneading, it is best not to exceed 26 degrees.

Place in a container. Cover the surface with plastic wrap. In summer, if the room temperature does not exceed 28 degrees, put the dough in the house for natural fermentation. If the room temperature exceeds 28 degrees, it is recommended to put it in the refrigerator for fermentation. Refrigerated fermentation temperature can be 4-7 degrees, 4 degrees fermentation 17 hours, more than 4 degrees to shorten the time. 7 degrees can probably ferment for 6 – 8 hours, the final or fermentation state is the main.

Ferment the dough to 2-2.5 times its original size, dip your finger in some high-gluten flour, and poke a hole in the dough. If the hole will shrink slightly that proves the fermentation is complete. If the dough still shrinks a lot, you still need to continue fermentation. If the dough collapses when you press it, it is over-fermented.

After fermentation. Divide into 16 equal parts. Roll out and cover with plastic wrap for 30 minutes.

Step 2

Take a piece of dough and roll it out, turn it over, and press down the bottom edge.

Step 3

Roll from top to bottom and pinch the joint tightly.

Step 4

Arrange them in turn on a baking sheet with enough space between them.

Step 5

Put it in the oven, like this in a bowl of hot water. It must have a certain gap between the hot water and the baking pan. Cover the door of the oven, and do a secondary fermentation. This is to add moisture to the dough, and then have a warm environment.

It is not recommended to open the fermentation function if the fermentation temperature of the oven is high. We can directly put hot water below the pan. Then close the oven door with hot water temperature and humidity fermentation.

If the water becomes cold then we need to change the water to hot water again. That the water temperature at about 45 degrees is fine. Please do not put boiling water which will scald the dough and let the dough produce a lot of large bubbles that make the bread not good.

Step 6

After about 50 minutes, the dough has risen to twice its original size. Dip your finger in dry flour and press a small crater on the edge of the dough. If the small pit slowly springs back, and you can still see the small pit after it springs back, it means that has fermented well.

After preheating, brush the surface with egg mixture and send it into the middle of the oven to bake at 180 degrees for 18 minutes.

Remove from the oven immediately after baking and place on a baking rack to cool. If you don’t eat it that day, put it in a plastic bag and freeze it in the refrigerator. The next day when you eat, take it out in advance to thaw at room temperature and then you can eat it.

Step 7

Whip light cream with powdered sugar and place in a piping bag.

Step 8

Prepare the sweetened shredded coconut and butter. Microwave the butter for a few seconds to melt.

Step 9

Once the bread is cooked, let it cool completely. Cut it in the middle with a knife, but do not cut.

Step 10

Dab a thin layer of butter on the bread and coat it with sweetened shredded coconut.

Step 11

Just squeeze the cream in the middle. You can add your favorite fruit or some nut to beauty it if you like.

Cooking Tips

1. The order of putting the ingredients into the bread bucket is usually to put in water, milk, eggs, and other liquid ingredients first, then put in the yeast, which dissolves in the water, then add dry ingredients such as flour, sugar, milk powder, salt, etc. Here you need to note that the salt should be put in a small corner alone, not in contact with the yeast alone so that the yeast will not dehydrate and lose its activity when it touches the salt. Yeast can be put first or later, it will not affect the fermentation. The main thing is that the yeast should not be in direct contact with salt and sugar.
2. As each person uses a different flour absorbency, when using a new recipe, first increase some of the water or less water. Leaving a small amount to make adjustments so that the dough is not too sticky due to too much liquid.
3. When the dough is just mixed, it is sticky. Please do not add flour easily at this time, the dough will not be too wet and sticky after the tendons come out.
4. Butter should be softened and used. If the butter is too hard, you can squeeze it a few times with your hands and use the temperature of your hands to soften the butter. Of course, you can also microwave it.
5. Dough fermentation: general dough basic fermentation temperature at 28 degrees, humidity of 75%, secondary fermentation temperature of 38 degrees, the humidity of 85%. I generally put the first fermentation in the bread machine fermentation, 60-80 minutes or so to complete the fermentation, the specific time also depends on the state of the dough and decide. The second fermentation is in the oven. If your oven fermentation temperature is higher than 40 degrees, it is not recommended to turn on the oven fermentation function, you can follow our step in the step. If you are doing European bread, it is recommended that the two fermentations are at room temperature fermentation is good. But the fermentation temperature should not exceed 28 degrees.
6. To keep the bread in its softest state just after baking, take it out of the oven and freeze it in the refrigerator without waiting for it to cool. Take it out ahead of time to thaw before eating, then bake it again for 1-2 minutes. It will remain soft when eaten the next day. It is recommended to keep the bread at freezing.

Oil First Method Vs Oil Later Method

The first oil method is to put the fat directly into the bread bucket with the flour and other ingredients to knead the dough, and generally liquid oil is used more often. The production of bread is recommended to use butter. If you use liquid oil, it is recommended to choose colorless and odorless corn oil, soybean oil, etc. To avoid affecting the finished bread coloring and taste.

After a kneading procedure, the dough reaches an extension stage. In this state, the surface of the dough is not oily, because the oil has been integrated into the whole bread. But the dough can be extended to reach the glove film state.

The oil later method is to first knead the ingredients except for butter or other fat until smooth. After 20-25 minutes in the dough program of the bread machine, then add butter and knead until the extended stage.

Since oil prevents the formation of gluten. When do not add oil at the beginning, but after the dough is smooth, knead it with oil until the final extension stage.You can see that the dough is tougher after using the post-oil method, but it’s just one more step than the first oil method.

That’s our recipe today. If you have any problems, please let me know.