Baking, Bread, Breakfasts, Cakes, Chocolate, Dairy Free, Desserts, Holidays, Naturally Sweetened, Snacks
Chocolate-Filled Steamed Buns with Cherry Sauce
It is so quick and easy, and very, very yummy! If you love chocolate, cherries and bread, you’ll love this! I learnt to make this at my Varoma training yesterday, and came home and made it again (my own, quirky way) for the family – they loved it. In fact, the leftovers kept calling us this morning, so we ate them for breakfast! (Hee hee) Don’t worry, we had scrambled eggs with mince and mushrooms first, so we didn’t only eat sweets. (Our meals tend to get a little back to front when my DH is working night shift!)
This recipe is adapted from the “Chocolate Yeast Dumplings with Cherry Sauce” recipe in the Thermomix Varoma cookbook… I just ‘tweaked’ it to make it more allergy friendly. (For those who don’t have a Thermomix, the Varoma is a steamer – maybe you can figure out how to make it in a veggie steamer – I’m not sure.)
Chocolate-Filled Steamed Buns with Cherry Sauce
Ingredients
100g spelt grain
1 sachet (1Tbsp) instant yeast
30g honey
400g unbleached plain spelt flour
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 egg
30g macadamia oil (or ghee/ butter)
200g rice/almond milk (or water)
16 fat squares of chocolate (you can use any chocolate you like – I prefer Lindt 70% cocoa as it’s dairy free)
500g water
1 jar pitted sour cherries (about 700g)
15g corn starch
30g rapadura
Instructions
1. Grind spelt for 1 minute/ speed 9.
2. Add yeast, honey, flour, salt, egg, oil, and milk to bowl and mix for 6 seconds/ speed 6.
3. Knead for 2 minutes on interval speed, adding more flour if needed, (poke dough – if it’s too sticky, add some flour through the lid while mixing.)
4. Leave the dough in the bowl and let it rise until doubled. Knead again on interval speed for a few seconds, then take dough out of bowl and divide into 16 pieces. Flatten each piece into a rough circle with hands (about 1cm thick), and place a piece of chocolate in the middle of each one, folding dough around it to form a little bun.
5. Place the buns in buttered/oiled Varoma bowl and tray, leaving some space between them so they can spread out. Leave them to rise a little for 10 minutes or so.
6. Pour room temperature water into Thermomix bowl, place Varoma on top, and steam for 20 minutes, Varoma temperature/ speed 1. Check to see if buns are cooked, add a bit more time if not. (Note: Be careful when removing the Varoma lid – angle it away from you so that steam doesn’t burn you, and remove it so the condensation doesn’t drip down into the buns.
7. Set Varoma aside, empty water out of bowl, and place in bowl whole jar of cherries, cornstarch and Rapadura.
8. Blend for 10 seconds/ speed 4 for a chunky sauce, or 15 seconds/ speed 8 for a smooth sauce. (sometimes pits are still in the cherries, so if you hear any in there, turn speed down and just mix briefly. You can continue with recipe, and pick them out when serving it up.)
9. Place Varoma back on top (to keep buns warm), and cook sauce for 8 minutes/ 100 degrees/ speed 2.
10. Serve buns topped with cherry sauce while hot.
I dare you to try and just eat one!
Oh this looks good 🙂
I thought you’d like this one, Susan! 🙂
Nice work again Jo. A little trick to help is to put little circles of baking paper under each bun to stop the buns sticking in the slots.
That’s what they do in Chinese restaurants, check the ones in my post about pork buns
http://thermomix-er.blogspot.com/2009/07/pork-buns-in-varoma.html
Thanks Thermomixer – what a great idea! I only had a couple that ‘stuck’ in the slots, but I’ll try the paper next time!
WOW!!!!!!!!
YUMMO!!!
Would dampened baking paper across each layer rather than individual circles work too or would this prevent the steam going into the second layer?
Thanks!!
I Love Bimby
Best ask Thermomixer about the baking paper, as I haven’t tried it – but I would think it wouldn’t let enough steam through if it was one big piece.
Better to have lots of small pieces – just fold the paper oveer a few times and cut 8 or 16 circles at a time.
You can use a big piecs – but then once the buns are in – prick holes in the paper to allow extra steam to come up between th buns,
Thanks Thermomixer!
If I don’t have spelt grains, can I use 500gms spelt flour or could I use half normal flour and half spelt, 500gms in total?
Yes Jeni, just use 500g spelt flour/other flour – I can’t get any spelt grain at the moment, so I’ve been using part wholemeal spelt flour and part white spelt flour. 🙂
Jo, how come you use spelt flour AND spelt grain in this recipe, even though you pulverise the grain into flour anyway?
Good question, Iwa! The enzyme for digesting the gluten in grains is in the germ, and white flour doesn’t have it – it’s removed when the husks are removed. So I always try to have some freshly ground grains in my baking so that enzyme is present, to make it easier to digest. You can use all ground grains for the flour, but it results in heavy breads/cakes, which not a lot of people like. P.S. If you can soak the ground grains overnight with the liquids in the recipe, it makes it even better for digestion!
Looks great Jo.. what other flours/grains if avoiding wheat/spelt kamut would you suggest? i millet/buckwheat/rice/amaranth/coconut/corn
Intersting to read your explanation – I just bought whole grains for buckwheat (unhulled) and amaranth thinking i can use the TM to grind into flour, tried today and didnt get really fine..do i need to buy flour too?
thanks )
Hi Nicky, I haven’t tried this recipe with gf flours, but I have made steamed gf bread that was ok – since gf dough is more like a batter, maybe you could steam it in silicon cupcake cups & just poke a piece of chocolate down into each one before steaming? I’ll have to try it!
Hi a couple more questions
How much fresh yeast would you use
I don’t have or much like cherries. What would you use instead. I have frozen raspberries – do you think they would be too tart?
thanks!
Sue
Another htought – how do you think it would work with normal milk, or cream. I have raw organic milk so have a nice product to use….
I’ve made it with almond milk (dough is currently rising) but I don’t suppose it would matter much to not use almond milk?
ok verdict on the raspberry sauce – too tangy, even with the rapadura sugar. Wrecked the bun.
I also used too little chocolate I think. Mine didn’t have oozes of chocolate melting out like your picture did, so next time I’ll double or triple it. I just didn’t realise how much the bun would rise around the chocolate lol. I also think I would make the dough a tad sweeter, it tasted a bit dry and breadlike to me. Nice, but still room for improvement for me…
I remember eating custard filled buns when I was a teenager, from a chinese food shop. That might be an interesting filling to try.
Oh and my buns rose HEAPS and squashed against the lids, so that was kinda funny. But the thermomix sure rocks for creating steamed buns, I am glad I tried it!
p.s. 5yr old enjoyed creating the buns and stuffing them with the chocolate pieces 🙂
Thank you once again for a super delightful scrumptious dessert. I used small squares of baking paper under each bun as mentioned above and it worked out better than I imagined. I even got 16 of them in my Varoma, I was a bit skeptical of that. My boys don’t like cherry so I tried to tell them we could add coconut and make it like a cherry ripe but they do like the sticky date pudding sauce so I just made that and it was a perfect match. Reminded me of a twix bar but without the crunch. My 5yr old loves cooking and he pretended we were having a masterchef master class by mummy chef, lol Thank you again for amazing me with my thermomix once again!
Hi Jo,
I’m new to the Thermomix world and loving it and your blog, thank you!
I’m going to have a go at making these buns tomorrow and just had a couple of questions. I want to make a batch in the morning to have some for morning tea and some for dessert that night. Would the dough be ok to use that night if it sat covered in a bowl for the day?
Thanks Jo.
OMG these were sooooo good!!!
Thank you!!
Hmm, I stuffed this one up somehow…I used wholewheat bakers flour and they just didn’t rise so I’m not sure if it was the flour type that affected it
OMGoodness Jo, I wish I’d made these sooner…! Yummmmmmmo!!
Yay, Mel! 😀
Carly, wholewheat flour will make them quite heavy and dense. You can use it, but I’d use part wholewheat and part white. Also, if using wheat, you’ll need to add 20g more water, and you’ll need to rise them for longer because they’re wholemeal. 🙂