Stuffed sweet dough is fairly easy to make and yields delicious results. Sweet, nutritious adzuki beans burst from this roll sprinkled with black sesame seeds.
I have happy memories of making both steamed and baked versions of sweet buns for New Year’s Eve in Alaska a few years ago. These Arctic anpan were enjoyed by everyone. Back in those days, I relied on my Zojirushi bread maker to mix and rise all the dough for me. Now that we are in Mongolia, I am determined to make all my dough from scratch without the aid of any kind of machine. I’ve found that my bread machine recipes need just a little tweaking in order to convert them to fully handmade.
This from-scratch sweet dough recipe is simple enough. In order to amp up the looks of this confection, I jelly-rolled sweet adzuki paste into the sweet dough, slashed the dough as you would miniature French bread loaves, brushed them with egg to give the finished product a golden brown sheen, and sprinkled black sesame seeds for added flavor and a dash of “wow.” A friend at work told me these confections reminded her of bakery goods she used to buy in fancy Vietnamese boulangeries.
Sweet Adzuki Bean Roll
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup warm milk
- 1 tbsp yeast
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 eggs, beaten (reserve 1 tbsp egg)
- 6 tbsp oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup sweet adzuki paste*
- 1 tsp black sesame seeds
Directions
- Whisk sugar, milk and yeast together in a large bowl. Let stand for a few minutes until yeast starts to foam.
- Stir in egg, oil, and salt.
- Stir in flour and mix until well combined.
- Turn dough out onto floured surface.
- Knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.
- Place dough in an oiled bowl, covered with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled, about 2 hours.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Roll dough into a thick rope.
- Cut dough into 12 equal pieces.
- Roll each piece into a rectangle, about 5 inches by 6 inches.
- Spread adzuki bean paste (about 2 tbsp) onto rectangle, avoiding the edges.
- Roll the dough, jellyroll-style. Pinch to seal the seam.
- Place rolls, seam side down on baking sheet.
- Repeat with remaining rolls.
- Cover rolls and let rise for 30 minutes.
- Slash the rolls a few times with sharp knife.
- Brush all rolls with reserved egg. Sprinkle rolls with black sesame seeds.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Bake for 20 minutes. Finished buns should be browned and shiny.
*I made adzuki bean paste using just dried adzuki beans, water and sugar following the excellent directions from Japanese Cooking 101.
Dough recipe adapted from allrecipes.com.
And this is why I need to move in with auntie and uncle in distant Asian lands. Why do you tempt us from afar with your devil recipes????
🙂 We miss you, too!