Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Method to the Madness: How to make Taiwanese Bread, part one

*I must say something about the filling of this bread. Though it may sound slightly repulsive, it really is quite sumptuous. If you can find a high quality brand at your local asian grocery, it will be well worth it. The taste? Sweet, smooth, and delectable; and if you're making it yourself (using brown sugar), there are caramel-y undertones. yum! Anyways, onto the directions.

While I haven't quite perfected the dough recipe to my liking, I thought that I would post pictures of several of the steps. Sorry about some missing pictures; my friend was helping me with the shots and several were too blurry to be used. Now, without further ado (please excuse the name; it really is much better than it sounds).....

Taiwanese Red Bean Bread
What you need:
vegan sweet yeast dough
preferred filling of choice (sweetened adzuki bean paste)
sesame seeds

Roll out a slightly-smaller-than-a-tennis-ball size of dough into a circle. Dollop on about 1-2 tablespoons of your preferred filling. (Traditionally, this is filled with sweet red bean[adzuki] paste which can be found at an asian grocery. If you either don't like it or can't find it, you could also try some not-ella or something like that.)
Enclose the filling in the dough and then form it into a ball.


Roll each dough "ball" into an oval shape.



Run a pizza cutter or sharp knife through the dough, making 3 slashes. Don't cut through the ends; the dough should still be connected.


Twist with your fingers and sort of tuck it in a coil shape. Sprinkle with sesame and let rise. After letting it rise for an hour, bake in a 375 oven for about 15-20 minutes.


..... and voila! Here is your finished product!

7 comments:

Erin said...

Wow, this is really impressive! I've had sesame balls with red bean filling that were quite good, so I see how it works.

Anonymous said...

Whoa that looks amazing! I've never had anything like it. It sounds so interesting.

Unfortunately, I think the Good Belly drinks are only available at Whole Foods (and maybe Wild Oats). I forget how spoiled I am to have on down the street.

Tuimeltje said...

This looks really cool. And not too difficult, either.
Is it easy to make your own red bean paste? I've had no trouble finding the beans, but while the Chinese supermarkets near me occasionally faintly smell like red beans, I don't remember ever coming across the paste on its own.

Liz Ranger (Bubble Tea for Dinner) said...

hurray!!!!!!
thank you so much!!!!
(I am SO making these awesome things)

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

Such gorgeous bread!

Little Miss Sunshine said...

wow this is awesome!! I saw a similar bread in a chinese bakery shop, but I never tried them ... Just a question though, what is vegan SWEET YEAST dough ... can you use pizza/bread dough for this recipe?! THANKS!! :0)

Emilie said...

That's really cool, thanks for posting. I definitely want to try this out.