Steamed Chocolate Mantou 巧克力馒头 – Homemade

Growing up in SIN City, I’ve taken these steamed chocolate mantous for granted. They were easily found ready-made in the supermarkets and in various flavours such as chocolate, pandan and yam. And they were really cheap! Now that I’m in London, prices of items I held dear are now charged at a premium. Refusing to pay an import premium that was levied on something I knew was inexpensive, I embarked on a research mission to find an easy recipe for these steamed buns.

What is a mantou 馒头? Simply put, it’s the plain Jane sister of the filled bao. The dough is similar, a risen yeasted dough that is then steamed to fluffy heights. However, the bao is typically stuffed with either savoury or sweet fillings such as barbecued pork or lotus paste. Traditional mantous are just plain white with savoury variants such as scallion flower buns 花卷. Modern recipes of the ubiquitous mantou include these sweet swirled ones alongside deep-fried mantous. Deep-fried mantous are usually eaten with Singaporean chilli crab or in China, dipped in condensed milk as a starter or dessert. It’s like fried bread, but so much better!

These swirled versions are more aromatic than anything else without any heavy taste, making these steamed buns a perfect breakfast treat with a pat of butter, peanut butter or jam. Or all three at once! Nutella is also a good shout for these buns. I realised that plain AP white flour is not really that white…in order to get the super white buns that you see in Chinese culture, I think you’ll need to buy a super processed bleached white flour. I am not so sure that is great for your body…anyway the regular AP flour works a treat!

Unproofed v. Proofed and Steamed

If you are in Asia, you can look for Hong Kong Flour in the supermarket. Those are made for baos, supposedly. I’ve also seen recipes that utilise cake flour for a lighter texture. So, after conducting some research (as you can see from the above soliloquy) and one disastrous bao experiment, I managed to work out an easy chocolate mantou recipe.

Steamed Chocolate Mantou Recipe

Prep time: 20 minutes, Cook Time: 40 minutes, Makes: 8 buns

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Ingredients

• 235g plain flour
• 15g corn flour (in the UK corn flour and corn starch are the same thing. In the US, corn flour = corn meal)
• 3g instant yeast (you can use Active Dry Yeast too)
• 55g caster sugar
• ~170ml warm whole milk (Warm = no higher than 55 degree C. Coconut milk would be also a good plant-based substitute)
• 37ml vegetable oil
• 10g cocoa powder

Method

• Sift together the plain flour, corn flour, instant yeast, sugar. Pour the warm milk into the bowl and stir with a spatula until a batter forms.
• If using active dry yeast, place the yeast into the warm milk with the sugar and leave to rest for 5 minutes. The yeast mixture should be foamy. Pour the foamy yeast mixture into your plain flour and corn flour. Stir until a batter forms.
• Add in the vegetable oil gradually as you knead. A smooth dough should start to form.
• Weigh the dough and divide it equally into two portions. Set aside one of the dough balls and cover to prevent it from drying out.
• Add cocoa powder to the remaining dough ball and knead until well incorporated. This should take 5-7 minutes. Leave to rest for about 7-9 minutes.
• Tear out two sheets of baking paper, large enough to roll out the dough on. Place the milk dough on one sheet, coat your rolling pin in flour and start rolling the dough into a thin sheet. Repeat with the chocolate dough ona separate baking sheet.
• Put the chocolate dough on top of the rolled out milk dough trim to neat rectangles. Reserve the odds and ends as test buns.
• Roll up both doughs into a long cylinder as if you’re making cinnamon rolls. Then divide into 8 equal portions. Use a serrated knife for easier cutting. You should get a lovely swirled bun. Roll the remaining dough into crescent roll style buns as your test buns.
• Leave to rest in an enclosed microwave or oven (turned off), with a cup of boiling water. This enables the dough to rise better. This should take 25 minutes. Leave longer if the doughs haven’t doubled in size. Do leave some space between them otherwise they will stick to each other.
• Reuse the baking sheets as liners for your steamer, and pour boiling water into the crevice below. Place the mantous after they’ve proofed on the liners and steam over medium heat for about 15 minutes. You should get nice fluffy buns by then, if not, leave them inside for another 2 minutes. You can use your test pieces to gauge the timing.
• Take the buns out of the steamer and leave to cool before tasting.

And voila these are my delicious chocolate swirl mantous that I promptly ate with butter. Ah! The taste of my childhood is so comforting. 🙂