At Broadsheet and The Alternative Dairy Co.’s one-day-only brunch (on Sunday February 9 at Axil Coffee Roasters), baker Raymond Tan’s coffee buns were served with an enviable breakfast spread that included comté cheese, soft-boiled eggs, kaya (coconut jam), whipped butter, avocado with condensed milk, and achar (pickled vegetables with chilli, peanut and sesame). The impressive brunch was served alongside lattes made with plant-based milks, prepared by two-time Australian Barista Champion Jack Simpson.
Tan – the force behind Raya on Little Collins Street and the newly opened Hot-Listed “Scandinasian” bakery Dua at Collingwood Yards – says the coffee buns are “the vessel that you can rip apart and eat with any little condiments.”
While he hasn’t come across many of them since moving to Australia over 10 years ago, coffee buns – soft and fluffy milk bread topped with a craquelin-like coffee-flavoured cookie crust – are commonly found in his hometown of Klang, Malaysia. “In the shopping malls, you just smell it. There’s a shop called Papparoti that just sells coffee buns,” he says.
For the brunch with The Alternative Dairy Co., Tan developed a coffee bun recipe that uses oat milk, rather than the more traditional dairy milk. Missed out but wish you could try them for yourself? Don’t worry – Tan shared his recipe with us, so you can make his coffee buns at home.
While the coffee buns can be paired with almost anything, his favourite is the sweet and creamy combination of avocado and condensed milk. “In Asia, we actually do avocado smoothies with condensed milk – it’s very popular in Indonesia and Vietnam,” he says.
If you’ve made coffee buns before, Tan says using oat milk means you may need to knead the dough for a bit longer than usual – but it’s well worth the effort. The oat milk makes the finished coffee buns less chewy than the ones you find in Malaysia. His version is also smaller than you typically find, “so you get more of the cookie and the coffee crust.”
Raymond Tan’s coffee buns
Serves 10
Prep time: 40 minutes, plus 100 minutes for proofing the dough
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Ingredients
405g plain flour
250g The Alternative Dairy Co. oat milk (room temperature)
50g sugar
6g instant yeast
5g salt
1 egg
55g butter, softened
100g cold butter, cut into 10g cubes
Cookie topping
6g (3 tsp) instant coffee powder
20ml hot water
80g butter, softened
65g caster sugar
1g salt
1 large egg, room temperature
2g vanilla essence
80g plain flour
Method
Start the bread dough. In a stand mixer bowl fitted with a dough hook, add flour, oat milk, sugar, instant yeast, salt and egg. Knead for 7 minutes on a slow setting. Add the softened butter and continue kneading for another 7–8 minutes until smooth and elastic.
Roll the dough into a ball, place in an oiled bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Place the bowl in a warm spot to proof until doubled in size, about 45–60 minutes.
Remove the dough from the bowl and punch out any air. Divide into 65g balls of dough, or 10 pieces.
Wrap a small piece of cold cubed butter in the centre of the dough. Roll it into a ball. Repeat for each of the 10 dough balls.
Place the dough balls on a baking tray lined with baking paper and cover loosely with a tea towel. Proof again until almost doubled in size, about 30–40 minutes. The dough is ready when it leaves an indent when you press it.
While the dough is proofing, preheat the oven to 180ºC and make the cookie topping. Mix the instant coffee powder with hot water together in a large bowl. Add the softened butter, sugar and salt and whisk until smooth. Incorporate the egg and vanilla essence and whisk until combined. Sift in the flour and mix until just combined.
Transfer the batter into a piping bag with a small round tip. When the dough is proofed and ready, pipe swirls of the coffee topping over the top of the buns.
Bake the buns for 15 minutes or until cooked through. Enjoy on buns on their own or with your choice of condiments.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with The Alternative Dairy Co.
