baking, life's simple pleasure

One of my life's simple pleasures is retrieving a tray of freshly baked bread from my oven. I find great satisfaction and delight when my homemade bread was baked to perfection, and enjoyed by my family.

I came up with the idea of baking these Oreo Cream Cheese Buns after making some oreo bombs for the oreo monsters at home. Oreo bombs are rather similar to chocolate truffles or cake pops. They are made by combining crushed oreo cookies with cream cheeses, shaped into round balls and then coated with melted chocolate.

Those oreo bombs were delicious even for someone who doesn't fancy oreos. I find the oreo and cream cheese mixture has got the right texture, perfect to use as fillings for buns and bread rolls.

The bread buns were made using my favorite tang zhong method. Although the dough was rather wet and sticky, and took a longer time to knead even with the help of a stand mixer, the tang zhong method yields buns that remain soft for 2 to 3 days. These buns will become regulars as my pantry never runs out of oreos!





Oreo Cream Cheese Buns


Ingredients:
(makes 10)

for the buns:
tang zhong (water-roux):
20g bread flour
100ml water

bread dough:
210g bread flour
56g cake flour
20g milk powder
42g caster sugar
3g salt
6g instant yeast
30g egg, lightly beaten
85g water
84g tang zhong (water-roux)
22g unsalted butter

for the filling:
18 oreo cookies
125g cream cheese, cut into cubes, soften at room temperature

Method:

to make tang zhong:
*Place 20g bread flour in a saucepan. Add 100ml water, mix with a hand whisk till smooth, making sure there are no lumps of flour. Cook over medium to low heat, stirring constantly with the hand whisk to prevent it from burning. Within 1 to 2 mins, the mixture will start to thicken, stop when you see traces in the mixture for every stir you make with the hand whisk. The tang zhong is ready. Immediately transfer the hot tang zhong into a bowl and cover it with a cling wrap, making sure the cling wrap sticks onto the surface of the mixture. This is to prevent a film from forming on the surface. Leave to cool completely before using it.

to make the oreo cream cheese filling:
*Place oreo cookies (with the cream) in a plastic bag or ziploc bag. Crush the cookies with a rolling pin to a fine crumb. Place cream cheese in a mixing bowl, with an electric mixer or a hand whisk, beat the cream cheese till smooth. Add in the crushed oreo and mix well with a spatula. Cover and store in fridge until ready to use.

to make the bread dough:
* Place bread flour, cake flour, milk powder, sugar, salt, yeast, egg, water and tang zhong (use 84g) in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Let the mixer knead the dough on high speed until the ingredients come together to form a dough, takes about 8 to 10 mins. Add in the butter and continue to knead for another 15~20mins until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. (Upon adding the butter, the dough will become very wet/slack again, add some flour if it remains slack after 10 mins of kneading. Depending on the type of flour used, the dough may still stick to the sides of the mixing bowl after 15-20mins of kneading. If this happens, continue to knead for another 5mins or so, stop the machine, oil or dust hands with flour and proceed to remove the dough from the bowl.
* Place dough in a lightly greased (use vegetable oil or butter) mixing bowl, cover with cling wrap or a damp cloth and let proof in room temperature (around 28 to 30 degC) for about one hour, or until double in bulk.
* Remove the dough from the bowl and give a few light kneading to press out the gas in the dough. Divide the dough into 10 equal portions. Roll each dough into smooth rounds, cover with a damp cloth or cling wrap and let the doughs rest for 10mins.

* Divide the oreo cream cheese filling into 10 equal portions. For each bread dough, flatten into a disc and wrap with 1 portion of the filling. Pinch and seal the seams. Place wrapped dough, seam side down on a greased (or lined with parchment paper) baking tray. Space doughs two inches apart to allow them to expand. Repeat with the rest of the doughs. Cover doughs with damp cloth or cling wrap and leave to proof for the second time for about 30 to 40mins, or until double in size.
* Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for 12 to 15mins or until golden brown. Remove from oven and transfer to wire track to let cool. Once cool, store immediately in an airtight container.

Recipe source for bread dough: adapted from 65度C汤种面包, 陈郁芬