Legend of Zhongdian – Xianweng Shoutao Bao

Flavor: Original; Cooking method: Steaming; Time: One hour; Difficulty: Ordinary.

Steps to make Legend of Zhongdian – Xianweng Shoutao Bao

The ingredients are: 500g flour, 220g water, 3g yeast, 15g sugar, 3g lard, red and green food coloring, and red bean paste filling.

Firstly, weigh the ingredients and mix them together.

Mix until it becomes a snowflake-like texture, then let it sit for 3 minutes.

Knead it into a smooth dough.

Divide the red bean paste into small balls, about 25-30g each, for easy wrapping later.

Then divide the kneaded dough into small pieces of 40g each.

Roll out the dough into a shape that is thick in the middle and thin around the edges. Wrap the red bean paste filling inside, with the smooth side facing up, and shape it into a water droplet shape (25-30g of red bean paste filling each). Note that the dough does not need to be proofed before wrapping. After wrapping, let it proof in an air-conditioned room to slow down the fermentation process, as the temperature outside is high and the fermentation process may be too fast, making it difficult to handle.

Then take a Western-style knife or scraper and press a mark in the middle of the water droplet shape. The mark should be deep enough, as it will be difficult to see if it is too shallow after fermentation.

Take a small piece of fermented dough, add an appropriate amount of green food coloring, and knead it into green dough. Then shape it into a triangle with one end pointed and the other end thick.

Press it down with your hand to make it look like a leaf, and use a scraper to press leaf veins on the surface.

Then take an appropriate amount of red food coloring, dilute it with a small amount of water, dip a toothbrush into the red coloring liquid, and scrape the coloring onto the dough. Brush water on both sides of the Xianweng Shoutao Bao and stick the leaf on it. Then let it ferment until it is about the same size as a real peach. Steam over medium heat for 12 minutes, then turn off the heat and let it sit for 3 minutes (here, the 12 minutes is counted from when the water starts boiling. Some people prefer to use spinach juice to make the green leaves and beetroot juice to make the red color, as they believe that food coloring is not good for health).