The middle of December is usually when we are in the midst of holiday parties, gatherings, and endless activities. I love this time of the year because of the constant holiday cheer. All around town, there are holiday lights strung up over homes and buildings. Restaurants feature menus full of holiday inspired dishes. Many of my colleagues are baking up holiday treats and bringing them to the office to share with everyone throughout the month. Holidays are the perfect time to taste new treats, and get inspiration for starting new holiday traditions. Just on Friday, at work, my office had a barbecue potluck to celebrate the holidays. My colleagues brought in smoked meats, baked beans, corn pudding, casseroles, salad, rolls, and beverages. I brought my crunchy vegetable pasta salad to round out the sides for the holiday meal. Our office was able to take a break during lunch on Friday to enjoy good food and conversations. I was even able to knock out all of the holiday cards for my office and hand deliver the cards to each of my colleagues. When the weekend rolled around, Kevin and I headed to another holiday gathering. This time around, we joined some of Kevin’s colleagues at his manager’s home and connected over great food and more conversations. In between all of the festivities this month, I set aside some down time to test out some new holiday recipes. One recipe I’ve been planning to test out was my matcha chocolate steamed buns. It’s a sweet take on my usual savory pork and cabbage steamed buns. To give the buns a beautiful green hue, I folded matcha powder directly into the dough and let the dough rest before rolling pieces of the dough out to make buns. Initially, I was only planning to make matcha steamed buns, but I decided to fold in some bittersweet chocolate to elevate the steamed buns to another level. Plus, matcha pairs exceptionally well with chocolate so why not? Once steamed, the buns puff up, and the chocolate melts. The end result is fluffy buns filled with melted chocolate, an absolute delightful treat for the holidays. The sweet steamed buns were a great way to top off a holiday lunch I made for just Kevin and I on Saturday consisting of sausage and kale spaghetti, barbecue chicken wings (inspired by my mom’s holiday chicken wings), and some homemade peppermint hot chocolate for a late afternoon sweet treat. I usually can’t go an entire holiday season without treating myself to at least one or two or three cups of peppermint mocha latte from Starbucks. I do, however, like to trade out the coffee for hot chocolate occasionally. The hearty lunch and sweet treats were a great way to hold us over throughout the day until we headed over to Kevin’s office holiday gathering in the evening. We spent a wonderful evening chatting, playing a gift exchange game, and enjoying great food.
For the matcha chocolate steamed buns:
For the steamed bun dough:
· 2 cups cake flour
· 1 teaspoon active dry yeast
· ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
· ½ teaspoon granulated sugar
· 2 teaspoons matcha powder
· 1 cup lukewarm water
· ¾ cup all-purpose flour, plus additional ¼ cup for kneading the dough
For the filling:
· bittersweet chocolate chips
For steaming the buns:
· 6-8 cups water
Directions:
1) Line two bamboo steamer baskets with fitted steaming cloth. Set aside. Cut out squares of parchment paper about 2-3 inches in diameter, if making larger steamed buns or sixteen circles, if making mini steamed buns.
2) To make the dough, combine the 2 cups of cake flour, active dry yeast, kosher salt, sugar, and matcha powder in a large bowl. Add the lukewarm water to the mixture. Use your hands to thoroughly mix the dough. The dough will be sticky at this point. Gradually add the ¾ cup of all-purpose flour slowly into the bowl as you continue kneading the dough for about 3-5 minutes. Let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes. While the dough is resting, take a break. Set aside the bittersweet chocolate chips.
3) When the resting time for the dough is up, heat a large pot filled with 6-8 cups of water on medium high heat.
4) As the pot of water is heating, roll the dough out into a circular shape. Cut the dough in half horizontally, then vertically, and then diagonally (forming eight equal triangular pieces). If you are making larger steamed buns, just roll each of the triangles into circles and then you’re ready to begin rolling each piece out for buns. If you are making smaller steamed buns, cut the eight dough circles in half again and reroll them into smaller circles. To make the steamed buns, prepare a small bowl of flour using the ¼ cup of all-purpose flour. Sprinkle a small bit of flour onto a surface and begin rolling out the pieces of dough into a flat circle one by one onto a lightly floured surface. Place about sixteen chocolate chips on each piece of dough for the large buns or eight chocolate chips on each piece of dough for the small buns. Bring the edges up, pleat and pinch around the edge of the dough wrapper until you form a rounded bun. Pinch the top of the bun to seal the dough leaving a small hole for steaming. Continue this process with the rest of the dough balls and filling.
5) Place each bun on top of a square parchment paper and arrange about four buns (if making large buns), or eight buns (if making small buns) into a steamer basket. Repeat with the other steamer basket.
6) Once the pot of water begins to boil, fit one of the steamer baskets on top of the pot. Steam the buns in the steamer basket over the pot of water for about 15 minutes for the large buns or 10 minutes for the smaller buns. The steamed buns will be very hot at this point. Let the steamed buns rest for 5 minutes before serving.
Takeaways: Another variation in filling you can add to the matcha steamed buns is red bean paste. When I lived in New York, I would order a green tea and red bean ice cream cake from Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for special milestones and birthdays. The flavor combination of the green tea and red bean were almost magical. Black sesame paste also makes for a delightful filling for the buns. You can also omit the filling if you just want matcha steamed buns.