SweetTalk

If it's within my capability, I'll try to learn how to make a particular food that my loved ones like. One of Ken's favourite breakfast item is the Pork Floss bread from BreadTalk, and I've always wanted to know what goes into the spread that makes the bread so unique.

Digging through my cookbooks, I found a book that was buried deep and almost forgotten. It's titled "I Can Bake" by Agnes Chang. Flipping through the pages, I saw this Pork Floss bun grinning back at me. Hey! I've got it all along in my drawer and I didn't even know!

I used my old, trusted bread dough recipe, and with a little ingenuity, I made breakfast that my kids and dear husband enjoyed. Imagine my joy when Gab thought I bought the bread from BreadTalk. HAHA! *on cloud nine*

This is the "Before" scene. Plain buns on the left and hotdog star buns on the right.



After baking, the hotdog star bun looks like this. For Ivan's breakfast, I put some of the spread (I'll call it CondensedMayo spread henceforth) in the middle of the bun and sprinkled some floss on top. I left it as it is for Vanessa's bread as she doesn't like the spread.



I used chicken floss bought from 美珍香. Here's the floss bun.


Ingredients

Bread Dough

• 400g bread flour
• 100g wholemeal flour (If not using, just use 500g bread flour)
• 1 packet yeast (11g)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 120g unsalted butter (can use salted if you want. I prefer to use
  unsalted)
• 70g sugar
• 1 cup water
• 2 eggs (1.5 eggs for the bread dough, the rest of the 1/2 beaten egg
  used to glaze bread afterwards)

CondensedMayo Spread

• Mayonnaise
• Condensed milk

Method

1. In a bowl, mix flour, salt and sugar until well mixed. Make a well in the middle and put in egg, well-frothed yeast and mix.
2. Don't pour all the water in at once. While working the dough, pour in the water a little a time and stop when you feel it's getting a little wet and sticky.
3. Continue working the dough until gluten forms, then add in butter.
4. Knead until dough leaves the side of the bowl. (means the dough will clean whatever that is stuck at the side of the bowl)
5. Grease a bowl and leave to prove until double in size. (Around an hour)
6. Punch out gas and knead dough into ball and let rest for a further 5-10 mins.
7. The dough will weigh around 1000g (give and take a few gms). Divide dough into whatever proportions you want. I divided mine into 20 pieces of 50g buns.
8. Shape buns into small ball. For the floss bun, I rolled the round dough into an elongated shape. For the star buns, I flatten the ball of dough with my palms and fitted 1/2 a sausage in the middle, closed the dough into half and cut (just enough to cut the sausage, not reaching the end of the side of the dough) into 4 equal portions. Take 2 parts of the cut dough and twist, press down. Do the same for the other 2 parts.
9. Grease tray and place dough slightly apart. (Putting them near to each other will cause the bread to later "fuse" with the neighbour)
10. Let rest for a further 1/2 hour. Brush top with egg wash at 190 degree for 15-18 mins.
11. Cool bread well before storing it.
12. For CondensedMayo spread, mix 3 Tbsp of mayo with 5-6 Tbsp of condensed milk. (My mum suggested adding more condensed milk coz she thinks it's not sweet enough). This spread is enough to last you ages.