a millygram of sugar

And we're back! What was supposed to be a short break from the kitchen to prepare for my wedding ended up getting extended by another 3 months thanks to an unexpected (but not unwelcome!) pregnancy. If you ask me, it should be called all-day sickness rather than morning sickness. I must have memorised my toilet bowl's every contour in those few weeks. The only thing that got me through was knowing that my suffering meant my baby's continued survival. 

Well, thankfully, I've since reached the 2nd trimester and while I'm horrified to see my weighing scale flash numbers I've never seen before in all my life, I'm glad that the nausea has mostly abated and that I'm back to loving food again--particularly the sweet kind, to the dismay of my elf who jokingly predicted that our child is going to be born with dental caries. (As if it dares.) And so, in honour of my bun in the oven, I hauled out my dusty kitchenaid and activated my oven (the real one) to make these coffee buns.

Mexican Coffee Buns (makes 10 buns)

(adapted from Kitchen Corner)

Ingredients

(for the dough)

250g bread flour

38g caster sugar

3g salt

4g instant yeast

1/2 beaten egg

135g fresh milk

30g unsalted butter, softened

(for the filling)

140g salted butter, cold (cut into 10 cubes, each weighing 14g)

(for the topping)

50g unsalted butter, softened

40g icing sugar

38g beaten egg (slightly less than 1 egg)

1 tsp granulated coffee dissolved in 1 tsp of water (I used decaffeinated coffee)

1/4 tsp cinnamon powder

50g plain flour

Directions

• (for the topping)
• Beat the butter and the icing sugar until fluffy.
• Gradually add in the beaten egg, and then the coffee, mixing well in between.
• Add in the flour and cinnamon powder and mix until well combined.
• Place mixture in a small piping bag and refrigerate.
• (for the dough)
• In a mixing bowl fitted with a dough hook attachment, add the bread flour, sugar, salt, yeast, egg and milk and knead on slow speed.
• When ingredients are well-incorporated, add in the butter and continue mixing for about 30min until dough is smooth and elastic and not sticky.
• Divide the dough into 10 portions (by weight) and let it rest on a baking tray for 15min.
• Roll out each dough portion into a flat disc, place a cube of salted butter (the filling) in the centre. Seal it up tightly. (Make sure the edges of the dough are properly sealed otherwise the filling will ooze out, as some of mine did.)
• Place the filled dough balls back onto the baking tray, shaping them to be as round as possible, and spacing them at least 2-3inches apart Lightly cover with clingwrap and allow to rise for about 50-60min.
• Remove piping bag filled with topping from refrigerator. Snip off the end of the piping bag and pipe out the topping in a spiral pattern onto the dough. (As in the picture above.)
• Preheat oven to 200°C in the meantime.
• Bake buns for about 12-15min.