Cream Cheese Buns

For the whole month of September, our 'Learn 2 Bake' Leader, gave us a new task:  Baking Buns...When I saw the 'challenge' I was asking myself if this is the end of my baking frenzy as to me, making buns is the toughest and we need to have the 'skill' to produce a soft and fluffly bun.

After deliberating and watching 'you tube' and reading up on the making of buns, I gave myself a chance to take up the challenge. We need to make the basic sweet bun dough first before we can add some fillings and make some variety to the basic bun. Surprise, surprise! I found that making the sweet bun dough was easy. All it needed was to knead and knead..(Good hand exercise :-) We had few fillings to try out. First it was 'Kaya' then move on to chicken floss and lastly cheese bun. After few rounds of making the sweet bun dough, I find that baking bun was not so difficult at all.

I started searching for some buns recipe and I find this recipe - "Cream Cheese Bun" a little different as they use cream cheese as filling instead of the normal butter icing ("Naiyu"). This recipe is taken from the book 'Bread Magic' by Alan Ooi

Basic Sweet Bun Dough
Ingredient A: 330g high protein flour, 1/2 tsp salt,1 1/2 tbsp milk powder, 60g caster sugar
Ingredient B: 1 Egg
Ingredient C: 120ml water, 10g instant yeast (Mix together)
Ingredient D: 40g butter

1. Combine Ingredient A together. Give it a slight blend before adding in ingredient B and ingredient C.
2. Knead combined ingredient for approximately 5 mins to form a dough. Add in ingredient D and knead till dough has a smooth surface.
3. Check whether dough is fully developed by stretching a small piece of dough with your fingers. If the dough can be stretched into a thin layer without tearing, it is ready. But if it does not stretch well, knead dough further till it passes the next stretch test.
4. Leave dough in a big bowl, covered with a damp cloth. Leave bowl in a warm place to proof dough for about 30-40 mins till doubled in size.

Cream Cheese Bun
1 quantity of basic sweet bun dough (recipe above)
Cheese filling: 50g icing sugar, 200g Cream cheese (combine together)
*Mexican Topping: (A) 100g butter, 50g shortening, 120g icing sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
                                   (B) 3 eggs, 150g plain flour

* Cream ingredient A till well blended. Add in eggs and cream again. Lastly, add in flour and blend once more.


1) After dough has doubled in bulk, scale dough at 60g portion. Shape into small balls, flatten and roll out each ball of dough into a round.
2) Put in some chese filling. Seal and form into smooth ball. Leave it in a paper cup. Do the same with remaining rounds of dough. Rest them for 50 mins, to rise a second time.
3) Fill a piping bag with Mexican Topping. Pipe some mixture over buns. Place all filled paper cups on a tray.
4) Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree C for 10-15 mins. Cool well on a wire rack.