How to Make Shandong Old-Fashioned Steamed Buns - Soft and Chewy, You Can Start a Shop!
As a Shandong native and someone who used to run a steamed bun shop, I'd like to share my experience with you all.
First, let me talk about the recipe for old-fashioned steamed buns.
First: Old-fashioned steamed buns definitely need to reserve old-fashioned fat. Let me take a pound of flour as an example. One pound of flour, add 3 grams of yeast, add 200 grams of water and form a dough. Put the mixed dough into a bowl or into a food bag, and let it ferment naturally for 24 hours, making sure it ferments thoroughly.
Second: Add 500 grams of fermented old-fashioned fat to 1000 grams of flour, add water and form a dough. When steaming old-fashioned steamed buns, you don't need to add too much water, generally one pound of flour will not exceed half a pound of water.
Third: The most important step is adding alkaline agent to the dough. How much to add depends on the season, I used three methods when making them: smell, look and test. Smell is, add alkaline agent continuously, smell the dough until it's no longer sour. Look is, use a dough to break it open and look at it under the light, the inside should be white and not sour, basically the alkaline agent is right. Test is, if you're not sure about either, you can first steam one dough, if the dough doesn't turn yellow and isn't sour, the alkaline agent is too much, if the dough turns yellow, the alkaline agent is too little.
Fourth: Form the dough with alkaline agent into steamed bun shapes and let it rise for half an hour, then you can put it on the pot and steam it.
This is my experience from when I used to run a steamed bun shop, I hope it can help you all.
