Bun Of the Month: Japanese Sweet Potato Buns
Take your hot dogs and hamburgers to the next level this Summer
Have You Eaten Yet? Here’s a new recipe from my kitchen to yours that I hope you’ll love! For more recipes, you can pre-order my next cookbook, Chinese Enough, or purchase Mooncakes and Milk Bread for all things Chinese Baking!
Over the weekend I attended Cookbook Fest as a speaker and got to meet so many writers I’ve admired for years. During the festival I was scheduled to sign books and I purposefully sat next to Dan Pashman of The Sporkful, who was also signing books at the same time slot. I told him how I have been listening to his podcast for at least a decade. Saying that reminded me of the countless hours I would sit at my work desk with headphones in devouring food podcasts (mostly The Sporkful), reading food blogs, and researching how one even gets a job in food that doesn’t require working in a restaurant. While I was dimensioning floor plans or creating office desk count studies, I daydreamed about spending my days at a cookbook shoot and mentally worked through recipes I wanted to develop once I got home. Somehow (okay, I sort of know how), I made my daydreams into my regular day to day and I’m pretty proud of that.
At the end of of the festival I read an excerpt from the intro of Chinese Enough for a live crowd and did not cry (although a few people told me they shed some tears)! I was a little too hot and dehydrated so I was really focusing on not fainting on stage if I’m being honest. It felt so nice to talk more openly about this next book and I got even more excited for it’s release in September! If you’re an avid cookbook lover, I hope you get to go to Cookbook Fest next year!
Alright! Let’s talk about these incredibly fluffy Japanese Sweet Potato Buns!
Now that it is officially Summer, I have a sense that our hot dog and burger consumption is going to be on a upswing. When it comes to a hamburger or hot dog bun please don’t give me a brioche bun… even worse would be a pretzel bun. They are too sturdy and cause everything between the buns to squeeze out with each bite. I want my buns to be delicate, soft, and a little squishy, but not so squishy that they disintegrate into a flat pancake within your grip. Its a fine balance, but these buns really nail it.
I took inspiration from a classic potato bun/roll. They are known for their tender crumb and are typically made with mashed potatoes or even instant mashed potatoes. Instead, I utilized roasted Japanese sweet potatoes (aka Murasaki sweet potatoes) for their more well rounded flavor and natural sweetness. I roast a few of these at the start of each week because our dog, Olive, adores them and I love to eat them with salted butter and honey. While you can steam or microwave them, I think roasting brings out their best qualities. The sweet potatoes caramelize in the oven, making them even sweeter, and their texture is more like a chestnut or even a custard if you leave them in the oven long enough.
The recipe is a slight deviation from The Mother of All Milk Bread from Mooncakes and Milk Bread. It doesn’t require a tangzhong and instead of butter we’re using olive oil for fat. The sweet potato actually functions in a similar way as the tangzhong. It provides moisture without weighing down the dough too much and helps keep the buns soft and fresh for a few days (although a quick toast brings them right back to life). The recipe makes enough dough for 10 buns and it’s up to you how you want to shape them and divide them amongst hamburger or hot dog buns. The hot dog buns would be amazing for lobster or crab rolls and the hamburger buns would make a mean pulled pork sandwich!
I made our favorite smash burgers and Reuben smoked some Cream Co. Meats hot dogs on The Traeger (the best way to cook a hot dog in my opinion) and they were phenomenal between these buns!
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