Purple Sweet Potato Rose Mantou - Steamed Buns # 2

25/6/2019 Updated: New Instructional Video below recipe

I've been looking for new ways to form my steamed buns or mantou and this is one of them.

If you want to make a heartfelt low cost present for your loved one, try making this and form it into a bouquet. Every bite of it sure comes full with sincerity and bliss :p

My girls refused to take the regular shaped ones (croissant shaped), but were all over my rose buds. But these were quite time consuming to form, as to form 2 buns, I had to roll 6 pieces of dough. It comes to 1 bun 3 dough. so, triple the work. But if it's for some one you love, all the work and sweat, when returned with a kiss... what work? what sweat? It's nothing.

Purple Sweet Potato Rose Mantou
Recipe source: Wendyywy
Shaping technique adapted with modifications : ziyumamajiayou

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 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 15gm 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 (uneveness) .
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.

*Tip #2 (7/10/13):
Form small balls of dough (15gm), right after kneading, before the first proofing, at Step 5. Let them proof as small balls. After proofing for 1 hour, just roll them flat to shape into rose buds.

Looks easy? Yes, but a bit time consuming.

***Take note that when fresh from the steamer, the colour is brighter. It turns pale to a magentaish colour after cooling down. Colour will return bright when steamed again.***

The first pic is 1st attempt, the day before I delivered Reuben
2nd pic is from 2nd attempt, after Reuben's full moon, which was more than a month ago