How to Make Steamed Chinese Flower Buns (花卷) Simple Recipe

Hey, what's up everybody? Today I'm going to show you guys how to make one of my favorite food items of all time, the flour bun or huajuan. The flour bun is called the flour bun because, well, it kind of looks like a flower. And it's a variation of the basic bun or mantou. If you guys don't know, there are different types of buns in China. So you got the basic bun, which is the mantou, which is kind of like a dome-looking bread thingy. It usually has nothing inside and typically it's not supposed to be eaten on its own. It's supposed to be eaten with other dishes because on its own, it really doesn't have that much flavor. And this is a food item that's eaten a lot in the north. So in China, when we eat our meals, we typically have a main food item such as rice, noodles, buns, or congee. So in the south, they really like rice. In the north, we really love our noodles and our buns. And the main difference between a flour bun and a regular mantou or a basic bun is the flour bun is actually layered. So you can infuse a lot of flavors within those different layers. So it's kind of like a almost like a cinnamon bun. I do want to say that this flour bun, the one we're going to make today, is probably one of the easiest things you can make. And it's going to be really impressive because it actually looks really complicated and it looks really pretty. It's really delicious. So you guys got to try this recipe and go impress your family and friends and be like, Yo, this was like super hard. You know that Lady M crepe cake with all those layers? Yeah, it's like that. That's what I did today. Today, we're going to make two batches of Huajuan flour buns. The first batch, we're going to make it pretty simple. We're going to do a simple scallion flour bun. So the second bun, we're going to make it half Chinese sausage. And the other half is going to get a little crazy. The other half, we're going to use bacon and we're going to put some cheese on there. We're going to be food pioneers today because I literally never tried that before. And I'm sure people in China never really thought to put like, you know, cheese into their flour rolls. Let me show you what you need. First of all, two cups of flour. I like to use unbleached flour. And this batch will give you about six, five or six buns. Quarter of a cup of warm water. If you have this, great. If you don't, don't worry about it. This is Chinese spice salt. It's basically Chinese peppercorn with Chinese white pepper, black pepper, and salt combined. So it's kind of like a Chinese seasoning salt. If you don't have this, don't worry about it. I tried to find this online for you guys. I really couldn't. But if you are by a Chinese supermarket, I would recommend picking some of this up. Next, we have a teaspoon of yeast. A quarter of a teaspoon of white sugar. A teaspoon of salt. A little vegetable oil. I say maybe like a tablespoon. Just enough so we can, you know, cover a little bit of the surface of the dough. Three quarters of a cup of milk. Scallions. And I think for each batch, you'll want to use about half a cup to a cup. Depends on how much you love scallions. And I love scallions, so I'm using about a cup here. And of course, I have my, for my second batch, I have my Chinese sausage bacon. And I have some Monterey Jack cheese and some cheddar cheese here. And finally, we have some parchment paper that you'll need to cut into little squares. And you'll need a rolling pin. A pair of chopsticks or a mixer if you have one. Finally, you'll need something to steam your buns. So this is what I use. I love the bamboo steamer. You can also use like the metal steamers. I love the bamboo steamer because what this does is that it soaks up extra moisture. So there's no water dripping on your buns. It's not going to make your buns soggy. Now, I'll see if I can find one of these on Amazon. I'll put the link for you guys in the description box. The first thing we do is take our warm bowl of water. Again, a quarter of a cup of water. We're going to put in our quarter of a teaspoon of sugar. Give that a nice mix. Make sure that dissolves. After that's done, take your teaspoon of yeast and put that in. Now, we're going to let this sit here. We're going to mix it up first and then let it sit here for about 10 minutes for it to activate. And you'll know it's ready because you're going to see a lot of bubbles on the top. All right, 10 minutes is up. And as you can see, see all the bubbles? That means the yeast is activated and we're ready to go. Now, go to your mixing bowl with your two cups of flour. And go ahead and dump this yeast in there and give it a little mix. Take your milk, three quarters of a cup of milk. I'm just going to pour it into my yeast bowl. And I'm going to just dump it in here. Kind of slowly mix it in. Now, it's time to get a little dirty. Got to get your hands in there. Chopsticks ain't going to do it. We're going to knead this dough for about 8 to 10 minutes. All right, there you go. That's done. Now, cover it up with some plastic wrap. After you cover the dough container in plastic wrap, what you want to do is leave this somewhere warm for about an hour, an hour and 15 minutes. You want that warm place to be around 85 degrees. And what's going to happen, assuming we did everything correctly, is that the dough is going to double in size in that time. Oh, another thing I want to mention about the dough is that we used milk. And if you don't want to use milk, you don't have to. You can just use water. The reason we used milk is that we want our buns to be a little whiter in color. And for a warm place to leave the dough, what I like to do is I like to turn my oven on just a little bit and then shut it off so it's a little warm. And then just stick the dough in there. So that's what we're going to do. Okay, it's been an hour. Let's take a look at our dough. And if you can see here, it looks absolutely beautiful. It looks like part of the Michelin Man right here. And you can tell it's good because, first of all, it did double in size. And secondly, you see how that's kind of looking a little bit like Spiderman's web? That means this dough is ready to go. First thing we're going to do is splash some flour on here so our dough doesn't stick. Next, we're going to take our dough and plop it down. Just knead this a little more, maybe like 30 seconds or so. Now, the objective is, and you can try to accomplish this any way you can, is shape the dough into like a massive rectangle or square. And you want the dough to be as thin as possible because the thinner it is, the more layers are going to be in your bun. What I like to do is I like to use my hands to shape it first. And it's okay if it's not like the perfect square or perfect rectangle. It's okay if it looks a little weird. And throughout this whole process, you've got to make sure your dough is not sticking to your countertop or else you're going to have a sticky situation. Take your rolling pin and start thinning this out. Again, you want this to be as thin as possible. And as you're doing this, occasionally give it a little lift so it's not sticking to your countertop. This right here, at least from my side, looks like that meme with that guy. You know that guy whose head looks like the moon? That looks exactly like him right now. Okay, this is not perfect, but it's going to work. So take your vegetable oil and just dump a little of it. And use your hands and just lightly cover it everywhere. Just a little, little light layer. Don't overdo this because you don't want your buns to be too greasy. Just a little bit. Next, you're going to season it. One teaspoon of salt is more than enough. All you've got to do is spread this all around evenly. Like I mentioned before, I really like the Chinese spice salt. This thing has really good flavor. So I'm going to use this instead of regular salt, but regular salt is going to do just fine. And you can control how salty you want yours to be. Maybe one teaspoon of salt is not enough for you. Then add some more. But definitely add some scallions. Spread that evenly. Now all you've got to do is roll this up. So take one end and go up about an inch and a half to two inches. And then keep folding it this way. Every time you roll it up, just flatten it a little. See, this is why you want your dough to be as thin as possible because the more of these layers you have, the more layers that's going to be in your bun and the tastier it's going to be. Now we're going to cut these into sections. You want each section to be about two finger widths wide. And see the end parts where there's really nothing in there besides dough? You can just remove that if you want. So real simple. Okay, this is the tricky part. Take a chopstick and rub some flour on it so it doesn't stick. Now take one of these pieces. Take another one, put it on top. You're going to press in the middle. What we're going to do here is pull this until it stretches a bit and turn your fingers like you're about to twist it and then just twist it. Now as you twist on this side, you're twisting on this side as well. And these two ends are just going to meet in the middle and give that a squeeze. And there is your flour bun right there. Okay, let's do it again. One on top of the other. Chopstick in the middle. Pull this a bit. Flip your fingers like you're about to twist. Twist with the left hand. Twist with the right hand. And as you're twisting, these two ends where your thumb is on your right hand and your finger is on your left hand, those two ends, whatever side they're touching, they're going to meet and give that a squeeze. And there is your flour bun. Index finger, left hand. Thumb, right hand. Basically the top of each side of this little roll here. Twist on the left. Twist on the right. And they meet together. There you go. Take a piece of parchment paper and put them into your steamer. Make sure you give them enough space because they are going to expand. We're going to put the top on this and just let it sit there for about half an hour and these buns are going to expand a little more. Then we're going to steam it. And as we're waiting for those buns to rise a little bit more, we're going to work on our second bun. See, here we go. I made another batch of dough. For this one, I'm actually going to use regular sea salt. This is the one we're going to put a lot of meat on. All right, now the fun part. I'm going to put Chinese sausage on it. On the other side is going to be bacon. This is so awesome. And first time in history, at least first time I've done it, cheese in a Chinese bun. This really does look like a pizza. Wow, look at that. That's like a colorful rose. You got the green, you got the red. This is a thing of beauty. I would love to give this to someone. Wouldn't it be cool if guys actually gave Chinese buns out during dates instead of flowers? All right, look at that. Look how beautiful that is. It's got a nice color. It's got good texture. I'm excited about this one. Like seriously, let's compare these and flowers. Okay, flowers smell nice. These smell better. You can't eat flowers. Flowers cost like $20 per bouquet or something, and these are like $3. And just look at it. Look how pretty. So I think we have established that flower buns are so much better than just regular flowers. The next step is to steam them. Get a pot. This is the one I have. You can basically use any pot that fits your steamer. And just fill it up with 2 inches to 3 inches of water. Turn the heat on high. Wait for that to boil. When that boils, put this on for about 15 minutes, and you're going to be a very, very happy person. The water is boiling, and I've double stacked my bamboo steamers. And on it goes for 15 minutes. It's been 15 minutes, and the buns are cooked, but we can't open the steamer yet. We've got to let this sit with the fire off for about 5 more minutes. Otherwise, if we open the top, then the buns are going to just collapse. All right, taste test time. It's kind of like a slinky. These are awesome. I love the scallions in these. And keep in mind, guys, these aren't so heavily seasoned because usually we eat this with something, with another dish. But on its own, it tastes really good. Now let's try one with the Chinese sausage. That is amazing. You can definitely just eat this as is. I love Chinese sausages. They're so aromatic. Cheese and bacon and scallions. Let's try this. I like that. You know what? It kind of tastes like a ham and cheese, or bacon and cheese croissant. That's a good combo. I mean, this probably wouldn't be really popular in China because half the people are lactose intolerant. I like that. That's a really good combo. This thing doesn't just go good with Chinese dishes. I bet you this goes great with like mashed potatoes or a meatloaf. These things, they have such good flavor, and that's why I love them so much because they're layered. So each bite you take, and as you continue to chew, the layers break down and all those flavors release and combine together. That's why I love the flour roll. That's what I'm trying to say, guys. Give your ladies like, you know, a dozen of these. Come on. I mean, let me ask you ladies. Would you rather get a dozen roses or a dozen flour rolls that not only smell good, but taste delicious? All right, guys. As you have seen, this recipe is super simple, and two cups of flour makes you like six or seven of these rolls. So they're super economical for you as well. I have all the ingredients for this recipe down at the description box, and I'll find some good bamboo steamers online and put those links down there for you guys as well. So go home and try this. You will love it. All right. Thank you so much for watching, everybody. See you later. And since we're talking about buns today, I'm going to share with you guys the legend of how buns came about. Legend has it thousands of years ago, there was this huge river with a river monster living inside, and people really couldn't do anything about it because, first of all, it's a river monster, and secondly, that river monster fishing guy wasn't born yet, and the river monster really had a huge appetite for human heads. You know how, like, Chinese people love fish heads? So it's kind of like, you know, the reverse of that. Anyway, whenever people wanted to cross this river, the river monster would ask for sacrifices. So one day, 50 soldiers needed to cross this river for some kind of emergency, and the river monster told him that for them to cross, he wanted 300 human heads as sacrifices. The soldiers didn't know what to do. They had to get across to the other side, so they went back to the village, and there was a village elder. It always has to be some village elder with the idea, right? So the elder had an idea. He said, why don't we just take dough and shape it into human heads and then give that to the monster? Because, you know, back then, river monsters couldn't really tell the difference between a human head and, you know, flour. And I don't get why this elder couldn't have suggested this idea, you know, before the other people were eaten by the river monster. All right, you know what? Legends aren't really supposed to make sense. Anyway, they made these 300 buns, and they threw it into the river, and somehow the river monster was pleased and became a vegetarian. So everyone was able to cross the river safely from then on. So in Chinese, the name for that round Chinese bun, man tou, also sounds like the words man, which means fool, and tou is the same character, means head. So it's kind of like saying they used this bun to fool the river monster into thinking it was an actual head. And that's supposedly where the name man tou came from.