Red Bean Buns

From the World of WarCraft Cookbook comes this lightly sweet and absolutely delicious recipe for Red Bean Buns.

 

This recipe is rated skill level: Master, and takes a while to prepare as it uses a yeast dough that requires more than one rise time.  It is not a simple recipe, but it honestly isn't too hard to make either, just work intensive.  Particularly if you are, like me, unlucky enough to have no Asian grocer near you.  

I had no easy access to the red bean paste called for, nor could I even find the Azuki beans needed to make it from scratch, and I didn't want to order online for a single item, so after a bit of research I discovered that White Bean Paste is an acceptable substitute for sweet bean buns, and that white beans I had access to (I chose navy beans) were suitable. I took one can of low sodium navy beans, rinsed them well, and then put them into a food processor with 1/4 cup sugar (which I worked out was 2/3 the weight of what 15oz of cooked beans would have been when dried). After processing until smooth, I cooked on the stovetop for 15 minutes until the mixture became thick and stiff.  Then I spent quite a while pushing this product through a fine mesh strainer to get a very smooth, lustrous white bean paste.

I followed the rest of the Bean Bun recipe closely, and the dough came together very nicely.  I only had white sesame seeds on hand, so those ended up decorating the buns before baking. 

These came out perfectly.  Crusty on the outside and tender inside with a perfect amount of filling. Everyone rated these a 5 out of 5, which made all that work very worth it. They do take more than 2 hours or so to make, as they require a total of 1.5 hours of rising, but wow, what a treat!  We paired these with Spiced Blossom Soup, a very good pairing. I look forward to making these Bean Buns again!  Maybe next time I can get my hands on the red bean paste....