Cream Cheese Custard Oat Buns

Thinking of what to make for breakfast for my family tomorrow. Again falling back to bread, since it can be prepared ahead of time and stored up to 3 days....lazy me. :) The cream cheese in my fridge needs to be used up too, so I decided to come up with something different; Cream Cheese Custard Oat Buns. I modified my own Instant Oat Loaf recipe so I can use it here and then also modified a custard recipe to create a cream cheese version. Saw this bread moulding method on a Japanese food site and so decided to try it out too.

I know some of you readers out there must be going like...oh come-on, another oat recipe?! Lay off with the oats already! Okay, I do apologize if you find it "stale" to see similarity in my recipes...but I need to get more oats into my family. :-P So feel free to modify the dough to plain sweet buns if you like. ;)

Ingredients for Cream Cheese Custard:
250g cream cheese, room temperature
90g caster sugar
1 egg
35g cake flour
150ml fresh milk
1 1/2tsp fresh lemon juice
20g unsalted butter

Method:

• In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar together till creamy.
  
• Add egg and mix well. Then stir in cake flour and mix till well combined.
• Add the milk and stir well, then using double boiler method, stir and cook the mixture at medium heat till it thickens and bubble.
• Remove from heat and add lemon juice and butter.
  
• Let the custard cool then refrigerate it till needed.
  

Ingredients for Oat Buns:
Set A:
50g instant oats
150ml fresh milk

Set B:
275g bread flour
50g instant roll oats
50g caster sugar
1 tsp honey
5g instant active yeast
5g salt
1 whole egg
150ml fresh milk
40g unsalted butter, room temperature

Method:

• In a small pot, cook the instant oats with the milk in Set A with low fire till the mixture is thick and lumpy. Remove from fire and set aside to cool. Refrigerate the mixture for an hour before use.
  
• Mix all ingredients in Set B except for butter together with the mixture in Set A in a large mixing bowl to form a soft dough. Knead the dough till it is not sticky, about 20 minutes.
• Add the unsalted butter in and continue to knead till the dough is shiny and elastic. To test if the dough is ready, pull a small piece off and stretching it with your fingers. If dough is very elastic and pulls to almost see through without breaking, then it's done.
• Place dough in a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap and allow to proof for at least 90 minutes to 2hrs till double in size.
• After proofing, divide the dough into 12 portions. Roll each dough piece into a ball and let rest for 10 minutes before moulding.
  

Assembly:

• For each dough ball, cut out about 1/6 of it and set aside for the plaited dough on top.
• To the remaining dough, roll it our flat using a rolling pin into a flat disc.
  
• Scoop about 1.5 tbsp of the cream cheese custard filling in the center and seal it up tightly.
• Place the sealed dough on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
  
• With the 1/6 of the dough, divide into 2 and roll into small logs and pressing one end together, twist the 2 logs together to get the plaited pattern.
• Place the twisted logs gently on top of the filled dough, in the middle. Then repeat with the rest of the 11 dough balls. Let the dough proof for another 20 minutes before baking.
• 
• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Brush the top of buns with egg wash.
• Bake the buns in the oven for 2o to 22 minutes till golden brown. Serve!

The buns are soft and the cream cheese filling is not too sweet, a pretty nice combo if I do say so myself, haha! One thing I was not please was my moulding skill again. Some of the twisted dough on top did not adhere properly and some was even too short. :-P I guess I really need to learn how to mould bread dough properly. :-P

Overall still a satisfactory recipe, will definitely try out different filling or dough recipe next time. Happy baking!