Purple Yam Rose Steamed Bun (Mantou)

A couple of months ago, I found the video of "how to make a rose steam bun" on the youtube. The rose steam buns are so pretty and the pink colour is intriguing. However, I could not find a good time to try and the thinking of making steam buns is so terrifying. 

I, once made BBQ pork steamed buns, and I felt the work to steam them with my small steamer was too much for me to handle. If you are a regular of my blog, you may know that I am a midnight amateur baker. I bake only after the children are in bed and the morning after, we still have to deal with morning routine, preparing the children to school and getting ready for work.

But, I have bought a bag of steamed bun flour, different brand than I used to buy. And I wanted actually to use that to make salty egg custard steamed buns. However, I did not have the chance to make it. And a couple of days ago, we visited our friends, and I was running out of idea what to bring. So, here it is, I challenged myself to try the rose steamed buns. 

Coincidentally, I still have frozen grated purple yam in my freezer. Inspired by the great posting from Sonia (Nasi lemak lover), pumpkin rose buns, which are so pretty and looks very delicious, I modified a bit her recipe to make my purple yam rose steamed buns. I brought some to our friends, and froze the rest for next occasion. We planned to make chilli crab or something like that to accompany the steamed buns.

My husband did try 1 piece, just after the first batch was finished. He approved the buns. However, the pumpkin ones seem worth to try for the next experiment.


Making the rose buns unexpectedly not too difficult, but it is quite time consuming. The positive side of this shape is, they fits better in my small IKEA steamer than the usual round buns with filling.

I could not wait to see if the children love this or not. I will update the story, when I managed to make the dish to accompany the buns.

Ingredients
180 gr grated purple yam (steam it first before use)
125 ml milk (I used full fat pasteurized milk, but you can also use the fresh milk)
5 gr yeast
400 gr Steamed buns flour
50 gr sugar (you can increase it to 75 gr if you like it sweeter)
40 gr of vegetable oil

1. Mix half of the milk and the yeast in a bowl and let it rest for 5 minutes.
2. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a mixing bowl, add the mixture of milk and yeast. Knead the the ingredients using the hook attachment until the dough is smooth and does not stick to the side of the mixing bowl.
3. Let the dough to rest for 15 minutes.
4. Weight the dough 15 gram each and shape each portion to a ball. Roll each ball to an extended round shape. You will need 5 x 15 gram portions to make two roses. 
5. Roll the first portion to make the centre of the rose. Put it on top of the other portion, and roll them again. Do this until you get a five layers roll. Cut it in the middle into two roses and put the rose buns on top of the baking paper, in the steamer. 

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all the dough is shaped into roses.

7. Let the dough to rise for around 20 minutes.

8. Heat the water for the steaming and when the water starts to boil, steam the the buns for 15 minutes.

9. Repeat the steaming for all buns.

I noticed that since I was in a hurry (this is my negative side as midnight amateur baker), the first batch was not proven well. The last batch was left longer on my table and therefore the dough had longer time to rise. Nevertheless, I love the results.

One thing that made me a bit disappointed is the colour. I avoided using food colouring, that is why the purple yam. The colour of the end results is not as bright as the raw purple yam that I have used for this. It seems that when it is fully cooked, the colour is fading. Anyway, you can still see a little purple colour of the buns.