“The art of bread making can become a consuming hobby, and no matter how often and how many kinds of bread one has made, there always seems to be something new to learn.” – Julia Child

When typing the word Bao online, you will come up with a type of yeast-leavened filled bun in various Chinese cuisines and most often are steamed. Bao can be eaten at any meal, and also popular as a portable snack. This dish is popular all over China and at various regions of South East Asia due to longstanding Chinese immigration.

In my childhood memory, there was this lady that came to our house with her bike and 2 giant plastic bags full with Baos looking for my aunt. My aunt always greeted her nicely and bought a couple dozen Baos with varieties of filling. My favorite one was the one with chicken filling, which had a pink dot at the bottom of the Bao so we recognized the chicken filling. From the first bite to the last it was a soft and warm bread with a delicious chicken flavor.

With that memory, I tried to recreate the Bao that I liked in this recipe. Let’s gather all the ingredients: Flour, melted butter, blooming yeast, corn starch, baking powder, salt, sugar, and cold water.

First: mix the flour and sugar; just use a butter knife. Second: mix in the corn starch, blooming yeast, and baking powder.

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Third: add water accordingly so that the dough not dry. Finally: mix salt and the melted butter in.

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Then let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

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Once 30 minutes up, shape the dough into mini balls. This is the part where it’s up to you how big or small you like your Bao sizes are.

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Let all the dough balls rest for 10 minutes.

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Next step, is to fill the dough balls with the chicken filling as you can see in these pictures.

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Everybody have their own way on how to pleat the dough. My goal is definitely for our own consumption, so as you can see is not perfect (or pretty). 🙂 Let the chicken filled Bao balls rest uncooked for 30 minutes.

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While waiting, cut wax paper in squares for each bao so the baos will not stick inside the steamer. I wrapped my steamer lid with kitchen towel to make sure my Baos are steamed well. Once the water gets boiling hot, start putting the Bao one at a time. I used tong in here, because the hot steamer can really burn your skin.

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Steam the Baos 3 or 4 at a time, depending on the size of your steamer, for around 6 minutes. But make sure there are room in between Baos, because they will expand.

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Wait 5 minutes before you tear it with your clean finger.

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My household couldn’t finish all these Baos in one day, so I put it in 2 boxes. I put 1 box in the Refrigerator and the other one in the Freezer. Yes, you can freeze it, and when it’s time to eat, just take it out from the freezer and steam it for around 15 minutes, and it tastes like a fresh made Bao. Enjoy!

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Bao recipe:

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300 gram organic bread flour

60 gram corn starch

8 gram yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

30 gram melted grass fed butter

100 organic pure cane sugar

150 ml lukewarm (110⁰ F) water and cold water as needed

Chicken filling