Sausage Buns, the Hong Kong Style!

The first semester was over and I finally had more time to do some baking. Today I am sharing with you how to make sausage buns. It's a common bun that you can find in almost every bakery shop you go into in Hong Kong. As I only moved into my flat for a few months and haven't been baking much, I was not used to the oven here and it was a bit burnt on the top. But nevertheless it was still good. Actually while typing this post, I just made another batch and am waiting for it to rise. This time I am going to shorten its time in the oven and hopefully it will turn out just right.

You will need:

(8 buns)

1 egg

130ml warm milk

250g bread flour

3g (1tsp) yeast

1/4 tsp salt

60g sugar

20g butter/ 2tbs oil

4-5 frankfurter sausages

water

Method:

1. Add in the flour, yeast, salt and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Mix. 

2. Warm the milk in the microwave for 10 secs.

3. Beat the egg and add that to the milk.

4. Slowly pour the egg and milk mixture to the mixing bowl as you mix it with your hands or spatula.

5. Knead the dough with your hands and add in the oil/butter, carry on kneading until the dough does not stick to your hands/mixing bowl. If the dough is still too moist and sticky, add in more bread flour little by little at a time so you are not adding in excess.

6. Cover your bowl of dough and let it rise for 30-45 mins.

7. Meanwhile, prepare the sausages by cutting them in half and fry it for a few mins. Line your baking tray with some aluminium foil or parchment paper. Brush it with oil/butter.

8. After 30-45mins, take the dough out and spilt it into 8 equal portions. With each portion, roll it out flat and roll it up like a swiss roll, this can be done roughly, This gives the buns more texture when its baked. Then roll out your "swiss roll" so it is 1.5 to 2 times longer than the length of the cut sausages. 

9. Wrap the sausages around with your dough keeping the two ends at the bottom. The length of the dough should be enough for you to go round the sausage 1-3 times. Repeat the same for all the dough.
10. Let it sit for another 30 mins. Then brush a layer of water on the top or you can use an egg yolk. 

11. Preheat the oven to 180-200C and bake the buns for 12-14 mins.