Coconut Buns/Cocktail Buns

This is by far my most favorite soft buns to buy from the Chinese Bakery. I will always get a few to last me for a week. I am a fan of coconut and anything with coconut in it I will eat it. The coconut bun or cocktail buns (gai mei pau) is very popular in Hong Kong. It is a soft sweet bun and with rich buttery coconut filling in it. You can read the history of the cocktail bun here .

I did it slightly different. Instead of having the coconut filling on the inside I like the filling to be exposed on the outside. I just love the look of the tiny sparkles of coconut after baking it. They look so pretty. As for the dough it is just regular sweet bread dough and it is not as soft the next day like the tangzhong method dough but you can just warm it up in the microwave for 15 seconds and they will be soft again and taste just like freshly baked right out of the oven.

Pandan Coconut Buns

I bought a few of Alex Goh baking books when I went back to Malaysia last year but have yet to bake anything from it. Finally, I tried out his sweet dough recipe to make these coconut buns. This method is new to me as it calls for the scalded flour to be chilled in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours before being used. I looked in the book but there were no explanation on the reason why the need of doing that. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this. The dough is easy to work with but as for the texture of the bread I still prefer the Water Roux/Tang Zhong method as I find them much softer than this method.

Ingredients:
Adapted from Alex Goh Magic Bread

Scalded Dough:

100g bread flour
80ml boiling water

Pour boiling hot water over flour and stir with chopsticks or spoon until combined. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours.

Pani Popo/Coconut Buns

Pani Popo is the traditional name for a sweet and sticky bun that originated in the South Pacific Islands of Samoa. In English Pani means bun and Popo means coconut. These buns are baked in a pool of thick sweet coconut milk. When I baked these the whole house smell so good and they taste even better right out of the oven. Soft, sweet and the sticky coconut at the bottom tasted just like kaya. I am so in love with these buns. If you like this type of buns please tries this out. I am sure you are going to like it too.