Hallelujah, the sun came out today! I feel so much more cheerful and energetic. Not that I got alot of cleaning and decluttering done. But I made a dozen Chinese steam buns this morning. They don’t look as pretty as the photo above but they’re not ugly either. It’s difficult to master an art on the first try. They are tasty enough that I want a second. The pastry was a bit dense. I worked the dough too much. The ground beef filling was good.

The process was easy enough but it took me all morning to put everything together. For lunch we ended up going out for Japanese while the final proofing was proofing. I had to do the steaming in 3 lots as my steam could hold only 4 buns at the time. It was well worth the effort. Now that I’ve pushed through the first effort, I can experiment using different fillings and different doughs. I think this is the season for me to steam and bake my way through the recipes in Kristina Cho’s Mooncakes + Milk Bread. It will be a sweet and savory Chinese time for me.