Soft Buns with Ham & Spring Onion 香葱火腿小面包

Since young, I like to play with dough. It's very satisfactory for me to knead a messy sticky dough into a smooth elastic ball. The best part is proofing. Watching a dough growing like a self inflatable balloon, isn't it interesting?

Thanks to the tropical weather in this "red dot", the proofing process takes less than an hour under room temperature! That reminds me of those old days back in my hometown, especially during winter time. To make those buns, we had to cover the dough with thick cotton quilt, and put it near the heater for 3-4 hours...

Okay, let's come back to our beautiful day today. It's a Sunny Saturday morning. After a late breakfast, I decided to bake something for high tea. In my refrigerator, some spring onions, eggs, ham and cheese lying around quietly. "How about Cheese & Ham buns or Spring onion & Ham buns ?" The idea just crossed my mind, and the next moment, I have already flipped my recipe book to Soft Buns page...

Around 2pm in the afternoon, my lovely buns were out of oven, and... they were gone in 15 mins! Luckily I snapped some nice "before and after" photos. Seems need to double the servings next time!

SOFT BUNS (HAM &SPRING ONION)
(Bread recipe source: 65°c 汤种面包)

Ingredients
(makes 15 soft buns)

Water Roux

• 25g bread flour
• 125g water

Bread Dough

• 300g bread flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast
• 80g fresh milk
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 30g butter ( softened)
• 90g water roux     

Spring Onion Garnish

• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil,
• 60g spring onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Others

• Ham slices,
• white/black sesame

DIRECTIONS:

1.  Prepare water roux (microwave method):
• Mix water roux ingredients together in a bowl. Stir until smooth.
• Heat up in microwave. Every 15 seconds, take out and stir to make sure no lumps of flour. Within 1 minute, the mixture will start to thicken, stop when you see traces in the mixture for every stir you make with spoon or chopsticks.
• Leave to cool completely before use.
2. In a large bowl, add flour, yeast, sugar, salt, egg, water roux and milk. Mix well with a wooden spoon or a whisk. Knead with hands until form a ball (DO NOT add flour, the dough should be sticky).
3. Add in softened butter, continue kneading until the ball is smooth.
4. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and leave to proof in a warm area for 45mins.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Remove the dough from the bowl . With lightly floured hands, gently give a few light kneading to press out the gas. Divide dough into 15 balls – about 50g each. Leave to proof for 10 mins.
6. Flatten each ball and roll out to a circle with a rolling pin. Cut a piece of ham into halves, place on the rolled out dough. Roll up from the bottom, as tight as possible. Seal the seam and form an oval shape.
7. Cut a line in the centre of the dough to expose the ham slice. Leave to proof for 30-40mins.
8. Brush with egg white and put spring onion egg wash in the opening (I also made some ham & cheese version, they taste fantastic as well). Sprinkle some black sesame on the surface.
   
   
   
9. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degC for 15-20 mins until golden brown.
10. Leave to cool.

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