饅頭 (Man Tou) Chinese Steamed Bun Recipe

I have been wanting to learn how to make man tou for the longest time.  When I went away to college, it was one of the few staple frozen items I dared try to squeeze into my dorm fridge (ice cream just doesn't fit!)  Whenever I was feeling homesick,  I'd take one out of the dorm fridge, microwave it for 30 seconds, and then eat away my sadness in what I'd like to describe as fluffy heavenly Chinese wonderfulness.

Flash forward to my current life with kids.  My three kids absolutely LOVE the soft tenderness of man tou and we often come home from the Chinese supermarket with some frozen ones.  They're always bummed when we run out, and we have been known to wipe clean the little basket of man tou at the local Chinatown Buffet whenever we care to visit.

I just knew I had to learn how to make man tou at home.  It was the easy and obvious answer, plus I'm always searching for ways to preserve my Chinese culture and introduce my kids to more Chinese traditions and food, this seemed like an obvious thing I should learn.  I hesitated only because well... I'm really not very good at cooking to begin with... chances were it wouldn't even turn out.  Bleh.

Well, with Chinese New Year coming up, I finally decided to get off my slothful Chinese butt and try making them!  Plus, I was too lazy to drive with my three kids to the local Chinese super market.

I'm still trying to figure out the elevation adjustments with living in Salt Lake City, but these turned out pretty dang fantastic.  I may or may not have consumed three in one sitting since I am starting another round of the Fast Metabolism Diet tomorrow...

Ingredients
wet ingredients:
1/2 cup warm milk
1 cup warm water
T active yeast
2 T vegetable oil
dry ingredients:
2 1/2 cups of unbleached flour (or bleached if you want it super duper white) - I just kept pouring flour on until the mixture became dough-y.
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix wet ingredients starting in order listed, mix and let sit for yeast to activate
Meanwhile, mix dry ingredients.
Slowly incorporate the wet mixture into the dry mixture, until it becomes a ball of dough.  Knead for about 5 minutes, cover in a bowl and let sit for 1 hour to rise.
Knead again for about 2 minutes, let sit for another 1 hour to continue rising.
Roll out dough with a pin, then roll it up, cut about 1 inch pieces, put in steamer lined with parchment paper and continue to let rise for 30 minutes.
Steam for about 10-12 minutes until cooked.  Remove lid slightly to let steam escape but continue to let cool for another 5-10 minutes.
Snap a photo of the beautiful creation made, then proceed to consume in one sitting.

I actually used this video.. but I'm not going to lie, her accent really bugged me and made it hard for me to repeat - so I'm sharing her video and detailing the recipe above so I can just link to my own blog for future reference.  Enjoy!