Chia seeds bun

Mulberry and Chia Seeds Bun

My quest of cooking with chia seeds everyday (ie. to incorporate chia seeds into everything I cook or bake) started last Friday. Then on Saturday I made a beautiful banana and chia seeds cupcake. On Sunday morning, I made chia seeds omelette for the lil' fella. Oh, on a side note, it's amazing how fast kiddos grow. At 22month old, the lil' fella is already having two-way communications with us. When we picked up his grandma and grand-aunty from their house, his grand-aunty just casually asked him, have you eaten? To all our surprise, he answered, egg-egg and 'choi-choi' (which is vege in Cantonese), which was exactly what he ate that morning. I was in awe! 

Guess I need to be very careful what I feed him. Hahahaa.. not that I would feed him much sort of unhealthy stuffs anyway. Actually, I'm getting nervous if he would complain to his grandma that I only feed him oat and salad. Oppssss..

Oh yes, this was his breakfast which he described to his grandma. 

Today I baked some very very soft and fluffy chia seeds buns. I didn't have anything fancy in this bun, only chia seeds. Hahaa.. Chia seed is the fancy stuff then. Well, that's because I wanted to bake these and bring some to our very dear family friend, now in Palliative Care Unit in the Hospital Duchess of Kent in Sandakan. I didn't know about Palliative Care.  Palliative Care is a specialized medicare care for patients with serious illnesses (yet without guaranteed cure). It focuses on providing patients with relief from pain and stress of the serious illness, whatever the diagnosis. I felt down everytime I think about it. 

Anyway, I wanted to bake these for her, because the last time I saw her, she was telling me about this method of baking bread that yields really soft bread (ie the scalded dough method) and she had been wanting to try it but she couldn't because of her condition. I told her yes, this method works and I have been baking with it all this while. Refer to this previous post if you want to know more about this method. The addition of chia seeds into this recipe, combined with the method of scalded dough, made these buns super soft and fluffy. I hope Aunty R will get to try it and she'll love it. 

Scalded dough 

• 100g bread flour 
• 70g boiling water 

To prepare the scalded dough, pour boiling water over flour and stir with folk until combined. Cover and chill in the refrigerator. Keep for 20min before use, can keep up to 12hours in refrigerator. 

Main dough 

• 50g rice bran oil / grapeseed oil
• 250g water 
• 1.5tsp chia seeds soaked in 2tbsp water 
•  3tbsp dark muscovado sugar 
• pinch of salt 
• 300g bread flour (Hi-protein flour) 
• 100g all purpose flour 
• 1tsp instant active dry yeast 

Instructions 

1. I kneaded this using my trusty breadmaker. 
2. Add all the ingredients in the order listed above in breadpan. Select mode for dough. Press start. 
3. When the ingredients have combined together (about 5min into kneading), add in the scalded dough by pieces. 
4. After 1hr30min, a beep alert will sound indicating that the dough is ready. 
5. Remove the dough from the breadmaker. 
6. On a floured surface, punch the dough and knead a few times to remove trapped air. Form into about 200-230g (oh, I made four big buns with this dough). Brush top of buns with water, sprinkle with choice of topping (in my case, it was pumpkin seeds). 
7. Preheat the oven to 50deg for 3min. Turn off the oven. 
8. Place the bun in the oven for second rise (about 30min) or until the buns double their original size. 
9. Preheat the oven to 175degC. Bake the buns for about 15-20min.