Oat mantou with dried fig

I haven't made mantou for a very long time, cos I've been busy baking bread lately. I've been doing some blog-hopping and I've seen some really good looking mantou from Bernice's place, so I decided to make some for breakfast. This oat mantou is a good one. I made it in the evening and it was soft and fluffy when out of the steamer. The next morning, it is still soft. But I still heated them up by steaming them for about 5min, cos I like my mantou warm. This mantou feels soooo breakfast-y, cos it has soaked oat and dried fruits in it. I have chosen to add chopped dried figs in mine. The mantou itself isn't sweet, but every bite will have bits of chopped figs in it, which gives the sweetness, so it's okay.

 

Dried figs are one of those dried fruits with very high calcium content. The other dried fruits with rich calcium content are dried apricot and dried prunes. So if you haven't been using them in your bakes or cooking, try them.

 

 

This mantou is soft and fluffy, and remains soft even till next morning.

 

Here's the recipe, adapted from Bernice's kitchen.

 

Ingredients A

• 50g rolled oat, organic
• 150g hot boiling water

Ingredients B

• 15 rice bran oil
• oatmeal (Ingredients A)
• 80ml water
• 50g chopped dried figs
• 15g dark muscovado sugar (I've used this to replace normal sugar, to give it an iron boost)
• 300g all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp active instant dry yeast

*Listed according to the order the ingredients are added into breadmaker

 

• 15g all purpose flour, added in during second knead, after first proof

Instructions

1. Add boiling water to oatmeal. Cover and let sit for 15min. After 15min, stir and let chill for later use.
2. Combine all ingredients and knead until the dough is smooth and no more sticky. (I've used my Donlim breadmaker to knead this for about 7min*).
3. Cover with cling film and proof for 1.5-2hr or until the dough doubles its original size. (I proved mine in the breadmaker without any temperature on, it took me about 1.5hr).
4. Punch out trapped air. Add in 15g flour. Knead until the dough is smooth, about 2min in my breadmaker.
5. Using a rolling pin, roll to a flat disk, roll up. With the seam side down, slice the rolled-up dough to equal portion (Bernice has used thread to slice her dough, I couldn't find thread at home, but I'll definitely try it in future). Place on baking paper/ steam paper (I used banana leaves) and proof for 40min until dough becomes fluffy.
6. In slow boiling water, steam for about 10min (depending on size of mantou). After 10min, move the lid to allow a small opening to let the steam goes off.
7. Turn off the heat. Let sit for 5min before finally removing the lid. (These steps taken are to ensure that the skin doesn't goes wrinkly).
   
   If you've checked out my photo, you would have known I didn't do these steps, that's why my mantou turned out wrinkly :p