I’ve been craving bread. Sweet and impeccably soft Japanese bread in particular. Not quite sure what started this recent desire for pillowy soft buns, but with a severe lack of Japanese bakeries on the Gold Coast, I’ve been forced to get into the kitchen and bake whenever the craving strikes. I guess that’s not such a bad thing.
Anpan are essentially delicious Japanese bread rolls filled with sweet, moist, melt-in-your-mouth anko (red bean paste), and honestly, they taste much better when baked at home. Nothing beats warm, fluffy, fresh-out-of-the-oven anpan! That satisfaction when you bite into one and find that gooey, sticky, sweet red bean centre… so indescribably good.
If you’ve never had anko before, it’s a rather dense paste made by boiling and mashing earthy red beans (also known as azuki beans). Sugar is than added to sweeten the paste. It is a very popular ingredient featured widely in Asian desserts. For this anpan, I used the chunky version of the paste (tsubuan). If you prefer a smoother paste, look for koshian. Both of these can be easily made at home or found in certain Asian supermarkets.
Just look at how cute the little anpan are, especially with those itty bitty sesame seeds sitting pretty on top! I’ve found that these buns make a great breakfast, accompanied by nice hot coffee or smooth hōjicha to cut through the sweetness of the anko.
Anpan あんパン (Japanese Sweet Red Bean Buns)
soft bread buns filled with sweet red bean paste | yield: 8 small buns
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups bread flour (high protein flour)
3 1/2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon milk powder
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons egg, beaten
100ml water, warm
2 tablespoons butter, softened
for the filling & topping:
350g anko (red bean paste/azuki bean paste)
Egg mixed with a bit of water, for egg wash
Sesame seeds, for sprinkling
Preparation:
The full recipe has been moved to our new website, Milk & Dust.
Check out the recipe here: https://milkanddust.com/lifestyle/recipes/anpan-recipe-japanese-red-bean-buns/
ANGIE & JAMES DO STUFF 
Scrumptious!
Ah Yum! I just tried one yesterday. Beautiful :-)
Looks so delicious! I love red bean buns :D
Looks wonderful! Reminds me of sesame balls with mung bean…I know different, but this brought back a good memory. :)
Oooh, I love those sesame balls filled with mung bean paste… I might try making them one day! Thanks for the idea! ;)
Wow, it’s incredible that you made these! Even my mother, who’s from Japan, never baked these for us. We always just went to the Japanese supermarket and bought them. These look so good!
Ahh, these little buns do take awhile to make from scratch, so I can understand why everyone just buys them… but homemade bread always tastes fresher! ;)
Yum! They look perfectly browned and I can imagine how delicious the red bean filling tastes…
this looks great! :)
Red beans in a bun,….Is that tasty? The Burns look spectacular though!
The red bean filling is a thick dessert paste made of boiled red beans and sweetened with sugar. It’s extremely sweet (although I suppose this depends on the type of paste you buy) and to me, kind of tastes like sweet potatoes with a hint of caramel. A lot of people think their sweet taste is more “fruit and nut like”, which is true too I suppose. Red bean paste is used in many, many, maaaany asian sweets and desserts, from steamed buns to mochi to jelly.
Thanks for the sweet reply! 😀😀
I love these and yours look beautiful!
Thanks for sharing the recipe, I am keeping it :-)
these are so beautiful! looks exactly like the ones I love from the isetan basement bakery.
the best thing about making your own is
Iyou can add a disproportionately large amount of paste in the centre!I fell in love with these buns in japan and have been craving them ever since! Your ones look so much better than bakery bought ones as well! Thanks so much for sharing :)
I’ve just eaten them the day before yesterday and I love them so much *Q* The bakery I bought them from only sells handmade stuff so I was even more amazed by the wonderful taste ^-^
One question though, is there something I could use instead of milk powder? It’s not sold where I live…. how about regular milk then?
Hi Sarah! I haven’t tried it myself, but using regular milk should certainly be possible. A general reconstitution of milk is about 1/4 cup milk powder to 1 cup water. So for this recipe, try replacing just over a 1/4 cup of the water with milk.
Good luck, and let us know how it goes!
Thanks for the recipe! My mum suddenly bought a lot of red bean paste. Was looking for a way to get rid of it so now I know! Thanks again!
These look amazing!!! I hope I can find red bean paste locally to try them!
Do you think this recipe would work by filling the bun with ingredients other than the bean paste? The buns look so lovely, but I just don’t care for sweet paste (including marizipan, a sweet almond paste used in lots of European sweets.)
Hi! Any filling should be fine. The bun itself isn’t overly sweet, so savoury fillings will work too!
Loved this article! :) will definitely try this. Thanx for stopping by to like my site. Best wishes!
Do I have to use caster sugar?
Any sugar should work fine, as long is it dissolves when you add the egg and water! The finer grain the better.
Thanks!
Can feel the hunger pangs coming on!
Just made these today! They are so good! Thank you so much for the recipe!
trying to find out what this bean says and this is the website I found. lol Can anyone still help me? Here is a picture of it, http://s30.photobucket.com/user/akstewart81/library/?view=recent&page=1
Wow! I love these kind of things, great recipe! :)
Looks so delicious! I love red bean bread. Do you have a recipe to make your own tsubuan? Trying to find a less sweeter version than the pre-made ones.
Hi! Tsubuan is generally made with equal parts sugar and azuki (so yes, quite sweet!). A trustworthy recipe is on justonecookbook: http://bit.ly/Ug0cMU. I would suggest maybe halving the sugar for a less sweet tsubuan. Good luck!
Now here I am at 10 minutes before two am, and now I’m hungry…sigh!
These look yummy! As a vegan I would try replacing the egg and milk powder but not sure how they’d turn out. Thanks for stopping by my blog to like my post on Thanksgiving.
I just tried this recipe and wow! I must say, the bread is super duper soft. When I took it out of the oven, I had to poke a spot with a toothpick just to make sure the bread was cooked–it felt like dough! A couple of changes I did was that I ended up using half whole wheat flour and accidentally doubling the amount of water (whoops) so I compensated by putting in a few spoonfuls of vital wheat gluten and coconut flour. I skipped the last rise because I didn’t have the time. Also, after shaping them into buns, I flattened them slightly and cut the dough 6 times, and twisted each little wedge that resulted so it looked like a flower. Very pretty and tastes great!
so much work, but it’s so awesome!
angie, have you tried the anpan at isetan? I went through this stage where I had one nearly every day (as you might imagine, I didn’t fare very well in the trouser department as a result :p)
I made some red bean paste so I am eager to try this! Can I substitute the bread flour with spelt flour? Is it ok if don’t use milk powder at all as I don’t take milk. Thanks! :-)
You should be able to substitute some amount of the bread flour with spelt flour (maybe up to 1/4 of the total amount of flour), but it is not advisable to completely replace the bread flour with spelt flour as the gluten in spelt is more soluble than wheat gluten. This might change the texture and rising properties of the buns, making them less fluffy and soft. Of course, feel free to experiment with spelt flour and let me know what happens!
You can omit the milk powder if you can’t have milk. :)
And also can I substitute butter with olive oil?
This should be okay, although using proper butter in baked goods provides a better flavour. Be sure to use a lower intensity extra-virgin olive oil that has a very subtle flavour as olive oil is known to have a very distinct “nutty” taste that might not pair so well with the sweet red bean paste.
I just love these buns when I can get them! Although I thought they were Chinese, because I got them at my favorite Chinese buffet. I always wondered what they were called and how to make them since we’ve moved away from that area and I can’t go there anymore! Thanks for posting this!
I bought some azuki in Japan, now I know what I am going to make with it :) Great!
Beautiful post!
I love everything about these buns! They look wonderful, one can almost smell them.
I made these along with a homemade tsubu an as the filling. Very good. Also sold a bunch of them at our local farmer’s market. They were a hit.
My version with sea salt (offsetting and enhancing the sweet) and tsubu an recipe – http://outofabilene.com – if you are interested.
Reblogged this on Freedom in Words.