Chinese New Year Part 3: Good Fortune Comes from Things that are Round

After reading about why it's good to eat certain things for Chinese New Year, I came to the conclusion that it generally has to be
- round
- shaped like old school money
- has red bean

My bf wanted sesame balls with red bean, which is just batsh1t crazy. I don't have a fryer, and I'm running low on oil, so I made him a surprise... and it's not the hua juan above. (or the bbq pork or duck)

Let's first review how to make steamed buns. Don't remember? Read this.

Quick review: 4 cups of sifted flour. 1 packet of yeast dumped into 1.3 cups of lukewarm water mixed with 4 tablespoons of sugar. Let the yeast sit for 10 minutes until bubbly. Mix everything together coarsely, and shape into a dough ball. Rub with a little oil, and cover with a damp towel in a warm place for 3 hours while you watch a movie or something.

Punch down the ultra puffy bread, and put 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder in the middle. Knead for 10 minutes until really homogenous, and you can't find anymore trapped pockets of baking powder.

Roll into hua juan. Okay that was fun and delicious, but somewhat expected. I had extra red bean... so...

I stuffed a nice big roll of red bean into an oblong oval piece of bread like a bun. And then I turned it onto its seam, so that the nice smooth side faced up. I pinched one end to make eyes while using scissors to cut little porcupine quills! I saw this on an instructional video on YouTube, but they didn't have red bean in their hedgehog.

No where to run and no where to hide! Into the steamer you go.

They don't look so sad all puffy and cooked.

One got taken down straight out of the steamer, one got eaten at breakfast, and one got eaten at work! And then there were 3...