It has been far too long since I posted my last new recipe. I decided to try a sweet steamed bun recipe and tried to find something suitable on the web. I avoided any American recipes which mostly used mixture of 'all purpose' and 'cake flour' and found a recipe taken from a Ken Hom book. I decided to use half the quantities for my initial attempt.

For the sweet filling, I found a recipe for baked Honey Buns which sounded good. This recipe called for dessicated coconut which had been powdered in a food processor. Since we have coconut flour, I tried using that.

Since coconut flour abosrbs a lot of moisture during cooking, I reduced the amount (¾ of a cup instead of a full cup of dessicated) but the first test run came out too dry. I removed some of the mixture, added extra honey and oil and the egg white, to make the mixture softer and wetter, but the final version was still a bit too dry inside. The recipe for the filling is still only approximate since I don't know how much flour, honey or coconut oil ended up in the final mixture.

Making the dough

Put:

• 90ml warm water
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp melted coconut oil
• 190g plain flour

in a mixing bowl. Mix to a dough, knead for a few minutes then leave to rest while preparing the filling.

Mixing the filling

Mix together:

• ½ a cup of coconut flour
• 6 tbsp honey
• 4 tbsp melted coconut oil
• 1 egg, beaten

The resulting mixture should be soft and slightly wet. This actually makes more than you need for the amount of dough.

Assembling and cooking

I divided the dough into 6 pieces, flattening them out and placing about a tablespoon of the filling in the middle of eIach. After folding the dough up and crimping to seal the top, I sat each bun onto a square of baking paper.

I used our Instant Pot to cook the buns. To make sure it was warmed up and ready, I poured boiling water into the bottom of the pot and pressed the sautee button while the buns rested and rose for about half an hour.

I cooked the buns using the Steam setting at low pressure for 15 minutes.

The bun texture came out ok and the filling tasted good. Apart from the filling going a bit dry (which I mentioned earlier), the recipe worked well.

I have done a few more Lunchroulette dinners this year which I didn't blog about at the time. In approximately chronological order, they are:

Chicken Fillet Sandwich Meal

The randomly chosen meal type was Burger and I rolled a 10 on the computer generated dice. I picked a route at random and walked towards the city centre, counting the burger places along the way. I ended up at Love Chicken on the High Street. I chose a chicken fillet sandwich meal (I can't remember the exact name for it but it was slightly spicy chicken fillets in a bun).

Rib Platter

This was a pub lunch with some collegues from work. I used the random number generator to pick a panel from the menu then an item from the panel. I ended up with the full rack of ribs. Good but huge.

Chicken and Chips

I regularly walk past Big John's take-away but this was the first time I had gone inside. It was nice to get proper chippy style chips instead of the thin french fries which most take-aways do. Two pieces of chicken and a box of chips turned out to be a lot more food than I expected.