Purpple Sweet Potato Rose Bun (Man Tau)

My sister assisted me in making this cute man tau.

Before & after steamed

Thanks to Wendy for sharing at http://wendyinkk.blogspot.com/2011/08/purple-sweet-potato-rose-mantou

Recipe from Wendyywy

Purple Sweet Potato Rose Mantou
250gm steamed purple sweet potato
200gm water
500gm pau flour
1 tsp baking powder
100gm sugar
50gm shortening/Crisco
1/4 tsp salt
11gm instant yeast

1. Mash sweet potato, or blitz sweet potato with almost all the water to get a fine paste. Purple varieties tend to be firmer than orange ones.
2. With balance of water, mix with yeast.
3. Combine everything except shortening and mix to form a dough.
4. Put in shortening and knead until dough is smooth. Add slightly more flour is dough is way too sticky to handle. If the dough is sticky but can retain its form, like not slacking down, just continue to knead, the gluten just hasn’t form, there’s no need to add extra flour.
5. Cover and let dough proof until double, about 1 hour.
6. Punch down dough and knead for 1-2 minutes.
7. Divide dough into 50gm ( I use 100g) portions and form as you wish. For rose bud formation method, please read instructions below.
8. Cover and let the formed dough proof until doubled for another 45 minutes.
9. Steam on high heat for 12 minutes.

Rose Shaped Buns.
1. Make small dough balls of 15 gm (for me 16-17 gm) each.
2. Flatten each ball and roll out flat.
3. With fingers, press the sides of the circle to make them flatter and to create ripples (unevenness) .
4. Arrange 6 pieces of flattened dough, half stacking on top of each other.
5. Start rolling from the first piece on the bottom.
6. With a chopstick, saw the roll, it will roll while you saw, creating a fatter center than the sides. Eventually it will break into 2.
7. Place rose buds upright on a piece of paper.
8. Let buns rise to double and steam on high heat for 12 minutes.

*Tip : Flatten out enough dough balls for one round of steaming before flattening out the rest. Keep dough in fridge to prevent over proofing while you slowly form the rose buds. And keep the formed rose buds in the fridge(covered) to slow down the 2nd proofing while you shape. This method does take time to complete.