Pineapple bun is a staple in any Hong Kong bakery. When I was young, I loved going to these Hong Kong bakeries, grab a tray, tongs and pick all the breads you want. At the time it was about $0.50 to $0.75 at bakeries. My go to bread was a red bean bread, coconut cream bread, beef curry bread and pineapple bun. Now that inflation has gone up, I thought it’s time I make these bread at home. Plus I love the satisfaction when I can make something I find in stores!

The base for pineapple bun is very similar to my Japanese milk bread. The basic bread follows that recipe and the only thing I added is this cookie crust.

Pineapple bun history

Pineapple bun has no pineapple in it. However it got its name because of the way it looks. In Chinese it’s call Bo Luo Bao or Bo Lo bao (菠萝包). It was created in the 1940s in Hong Kong because There was quite a bit of Western influences and contact with Western countries in Hong Kong. This particular Pineapple bun was inspired by the Mexican Concha. The Concha is a sweet bread with crunchy topping. It typically looked like a seashell on top (hence the name Concha), while the pineapple bun has a checkered crust.

Ingredients:

There aren’t any special ingredients needed in this recipe. There is a bit of technique and time that is needed. However, you can find most ingredients in your cupboards. I would advise to always have three types of flour available in your cupboards: all purpose flour, a small bag of bread and cake flour.

• Bread flour: has higher protein content and helps to form stronger gluten formation that gives the bread more chewiness and elasticity
• Cake flour: has lower protein which means it’s great for cakes, biscuits and muffins where you don’t want that elasticity or chewiness. If you have too much protein content or gluten, your cakes or baked goods will become quite tough
• All purpose flour: medium level of protein which is great for all kinds of recipes and most of the time you can get away with baking with all purpose flours for cookies, quick breads, pancakes and crepes.

I prefer to use a mixture of both all purpose and bread flour for my breads. However bread flour is hard to find in bulk (or sometimes I don’t bake that much) so I buy a small bag of it and mix with all purpose flour which I can buy in bulk to use in other recipes.

Eggs, butter and milk are ingredients that will make the bread soft. The sugar helps to add a slight sweetness.

How to make it

There are 2 parts to making the pineapple bun: making the bread bun and the cookie crust.

Bread bun:

For the bread portion, you mix the milk, flour, sugar and yeast together until it forms a dough then egg is added along with salt and butter. Once it’s all mixed, the bread will need to be proofed for at least 45 minutes or until it doubled in size. Once it’s proofed, divide the dough in equal pieces and shaped into a bun. Then the cookie crust is wrapped on top.

Cookie crust:

I found making the cookie dough to be very difficult. It was hard finding the best butter:flour ratio. If there is too little flour, it’s hard to roll out and sticks to everything. If I put too much flour then the crust becomes too tough. For the cookie crust, it might take some experimenting to get it to your liking. Second problem I encounter is how to put the cookie crust on the bun with ripping or getting stuck to things. The best way I found is using a saran wrap and a bit of flour to prevent sticking and better handling. Once the cookie crust is on the bun, it’s very simple from there.

Pro-tip:

• Make the cookie crust as the dough is proofing and leave it in the freezer to firm up
• Use a saran wrap to roll out the cookie crust.
• Dust a bit of flour onto the saran wrap before rolling out the cookie crust
• Use the saran wrap to wrap the cookie crust onto your bun. You can shape the cookie around the bun and wrap it by twisting the saran wrap around the bun.
• Sprinkle some flour onto the workbench and run your bench scraper over it, then use it to score the top of the cookie dough.
• When dividing the bread bun and cookie crust, if one piece is too small, you can cut a piece off a larger piece and put it with the smaller piece.
• Don’t be concerned if your cookie crust doesn’t form a perfectly round shape, it won’t matter after baking
• If reheating the pineapple buns after refridgeration, I would recommend using a wet paper towel over the bread and microwave it.