Double Black Sesame Buns!

For Chinese New Years my friends and I went out to eat at a nice restaurant that was serving black sesame buns.  They were fantastic and I decided I would make some.  After searching the internet I found that there wasn't to many black sesame bun recipes and that I didn't really love any of them . . . so I used my bun knowledge and what I found and made my own recipe.  It is two parts.  Part 1 is for the black sesame bun dough and part 2 is for the black sesame filling. 

Double Black Sesame Bun Recipe (makes about 16 buns)
Time: about an hour

Ingredients Part 1:
2 cups flour
50 g or about 1/4 cup black sesame powder
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3 tbs butter
1 1/4 cup water
3/4 tbs dry yeast
2 tbs flour
1/2 tbs sugar

Ingredients Part 2:
50g or about 1/4 cup black sesame powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter

Making Dough -

1. Mix 1 1/4 cup water, 3/4 tbs dry yeast, 2 tbs four, 1/2 tbs sugar together and let sit 10 minutes. 
2.  Put the rest of the dough stuff together in a medium to largish bowl.  So, all the rest of ingredients part 1 EXCEPT the butter.
3. Melt the butter.
4. Combine all the dough ingredients and leave to 20 - 30 minutes (it really wont get much bigger)

Yummy dough!

Get the cups ready while you wait!

Make Filling -
1. Put all of ingredients part 2 list in a small pot.
2. Heat until butter melts and you have a paste.
3. Put paste in bowl and refrigerate or freeze (this will make it less runny and easier to work with)

Nice melty black sesame paste!

Cooled, just stir and your ready to go!

Make Buns-
1. Grab a nice golf ball size handful of dough.  Spread it out in your palm to make a circle.  You may need to flour your hand. More dough is better to prevent explosions.
2. Put 1 tsp of filling in the center.
3. Pinch bun shut.
4. Put in cupcake cups or on parchment paper squares.

Handful of dough . . .

Tsp of filling . . . sorry its hard to take pictures while covered in dough . . .

Seal it up . . .

Put it in a paper cup . . .

Steam Buns -
1. Get your steamer ready to go.
2. Arrange buns in steamer.  They will expand so make sure they have at least 1/2 an inch, but 1 inch is better.
3. Steam for 10 minutes. If you put a dish towel between the lid and the top steamer try your will prevent pitting!

Note the small explosion to the top left and the perfection that is the top right . . .

This is the awesomeness when you eat it!

Mine turned out great (this was confirmed by friends). I did have a small problem with explosion.  Most of the filling stayed in though so it was okay.  I also had some thin spots that resulted in an uneven look.  This is because my dough was a bit wet.  I thought it would be okay, but in the future if the dough is sticky I'll add just a touch more flour.  The taste is great though!