Polo buns

Today i spent about 4hours to make this soft and yummy Polo buns, using the method of "gelatinised starch". The study said starch gelatinisation take places when heat and moisture is applied to a starch, gelatinised startches absorb more water than untreated starch, thus resulted softer bread.
This also remind me of the Polo bun i took during my trip to Hong Kong and the taste is not much difference from my homemade Polo bun.














To prepare "gelatinised dough"

1. Place flour and hot boiling water in a mixing bowl, mix with a wooden spoon.

2.Mix till a rough dough, cover with cling film and store in the fridge.

To prepare basic sweet bread dough

Tear the gelatinised dough into pieces and mix with other ingredients (refer below recipe)

Knead till a smooth and elastic dough and no longer sticky ( in actual fact, i find the dough is still quite sticky. Don't worry, you can still proceed so long the dough is smooth and look shinning).

Polo Bun
(recipe source: adapted from Alex Goh's recipe which published in Flavours food magazine)
*makes 20 buns

Gelatinised dough
100g bread flour
70ml hot boiling water

Method
1. Place flour in a mixing bowl.
2. Add hot boiling water and mix with wooden spoon to form a rough dough.
3. Cover bowl with cling film and leave dough to cool in the fridge for at least 1 hour, and up to 48 hours.

To prepare Basic sweet bread dough

300g bread flour
100g plain flour
80g sugar
20g milk powder
1 tbsp instant yeast
½ tsp salt
175ml cold water
1 cold grade A egg
60g cold butter, cubed

1. Combine flours, sugar, milk powder, yeast and salt together in a mixing bowl.
2. Tear the gelatinized dough into pieces and add to the bowl along with the eggs
3. Using a stand electric mixer, mix on low speed, adding cold water gradually.
4. Mix until dough is well combined and leave the sides of bowl.
5. Add in the cold butter cubes and mix on medium speed until dough is smooth.
6. Shape dough into a ball, leave to proof for 40mins or until doubled.

To prepare Polo Bun

1 basic sweet bread dough

125g butter, softened
125g icing sugar, sifted
1 grade A egg
240g plain flour
1tsp milk powder

1 egg for egg wash
Icing sugar, for sprinkling

1. Divide the basic sweet bread dough into 50g portions and mould into round balls.
2. Arrange on baking pan and leave to rest for 10-20mins.
3. Proceed to prepare the toppings, cream butter and sugar till smooth and then mix in egg.
4. Add flour and milk powder and mix until well incorporated
5. Divide the sticky toppings dough into 30g portions.
6. Flatten a piece of topping and place it on bun portion, pressing down slightly.
7. Leave to proof for 60mins.
8. Preheat oven to 190c, use a sharp knife to score the top to form a checkered pattern.
9. Brush egg wash, bake for 15mins.
10. Remove from oven and sprinkle sugar once cooled.

* please adjust the oven temperature according to your type of oven, i find the temp 190c suggested is a bit high and resulted the surface of bun get brown very quickly.
I even added half portion of topping with coffee powder, thus it become Mexican buns

This bun is very soft while still hot, but I dont know the texture when store it overnight. I will keep you update the outcome by tomorrow.
Latest update on 22 March- after keep this bun overnight (store in a cover container), the texture turned slightly dry but still quite soft. I suggest not to keep this bun more than 48hrs.

Happy Baking !!