sour-paus

As some of you guys knew, I went for a 9km marathon with hubs this morning. So, last night, I thought of a brilliant idea to make Red Bean (tausa) Pau for all of us for breakfast.

So what I did was, I prepared the tausa dough last night, left it in the oven to proof. Thougt I should only line the paus in the steamer this morning so that all of us would have a nice piping hot tausa pau for breakfast.

However, when I went down this morning at 6 to steam the paus, to my horror, I saw these awful, ugly, flat and bubbly pau dough sitting on the oven tray starring at me! THEY LOOKED SICK!!! Immediately, I darted over to my computer to google why my sweet looking tausa pau turned into an ugly-sick looking pau this morning. URGH….

Answer is: I over-proofed my paus.

Gee. So I learned a lesson not to over proof dough(s) for paus, breads etc. Here I thought it would be an intelligent idea to let it sit and to serve it fresh the next day. Not so intelligent after all. ?!

So, I came across some tips when making dough/bread/pau/buns or rather what went wrong when…

Crust is Too Thick
• Too much flour
• Insufficient rising
• Oven temperature too low

Baked Loaf Crumbles
• Dough not well mixed• Too much flour added
• Rising place too warm
• Dough allowed to rise too long
• Oven temperature too low

Bread has Sour Taste
• Rising place too warm and dough rose too fast
• Dough rose too long before being baked

Dough Does Not Rise
• Water temperature too cool for dissolving yeast• Dough to stiff – reduce flour
• Rising place too cool – raise in warmer area

Bread has Dark Streaks
• Uneven mixing or kneading
• Bowl greased too heavily
• Dough not covered during rising

Bread has Holes in it
• Air not completely pressed out of dough during kneading and shaping
• Dough rose too long before baking

Tops of Bread Cracks
• Bread cooled too rapidly – probably in a draft
• Dough too stiff – reduce flour
• Dough not well mixed

Bread Doesn’t Rise in Oven
• Rising place too warm
• Yeast weak or old
• Dough allowed to risk too long

Bread is Heavy and Compact
• Too much flour added
• Dough not allowed to rise long enough
• Certain flours create heavier products (whole wheat and rye)

Bread Doughy Inside and Coarse Grained
• Loaf under baked
• Insufficient rising

Bread Falls in Oven
• Dough rose too much before baking

Bread Does Not Brown on Sides
• Pan too bright which reflects heat away from sides
• Overcrowding in oven
• Poor pan placement – try a different area of the oven

Bread Smells and Tastes of Yeast
• Rising time too long
• Rising place too warm

Bread is Doughy on Bottom
• Bread left in pans to cool. Remove from pans and cool on rack

My goodness. Its not all that easy to make a nice tausa pau isn’t it?

Anyways, all of us ate the ugly looking paus. They tasted a little sour, but the tausa taste manage to cover-up the sour dough. And so, should you want to try making sour paus, ladies and gentlemen, just overproof your paus!