Anpan - JAPAN

Anpan is a bun filled with sweet red bean paste from Japan, It has a pretty rad history, it was invented by a man called Yasubei Kimurain in 1874 who lost his job as a samurai and started a bakery. Can you imagine how disappointed his parents must have been, "Hey Yasu, what are you up to today? Fighting crime? Ninja stuff?"... "Nah, just gunna bake some bread eh..." 

Anyway, he wanted to introduce some western food that was more appealing to Japanese tastebuds and Anpan was the result. It became popular very quickly, soon the emperor was addicted and there was even a cartoon named after it called 'Apanpan Man', a superhero with a head made from Anpan. Awesome.

ANPAN - JAPAN

Ingredients:

For the dough:

4 cups of flour

1 1/4 cups of soy milk

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp active yeast

For the paste:

1 cup adzuki beans, soaked over night

1/2 cup caster sugar

4 cups water

Instructions:

For the paste, cook the adzuki beans for about 1 hour until soft, drain then mash the beans, add sugar and return to the heat for 10-15 minutes.

For the dough, mix the dry ingredients together, warm the milk and add to the dry ingredients with the olive oil. Kneed well and leave to rest for 2 hours until it doubles in size.

Divide the dough into about 6 - 8 portions and roll into balls. Leave for another 10 minutes.

Flatten and stretch dough into a circle about 3-4 inches in diameter.

Place a ball of the paste in the center and close the edges together and roll into a ball. Seal side down, Leave to rest for another 30 minutes, then bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes until brown.