coconut cream coffee cake buns.

I have one more bread recipe I can make from the dough I made and froze, ready to be used when the moment strikes. It's the last one, I swear. I have a few more bread recipes I want to attempt, but they will be using different doughs. I'll inevitably try to stretch one kind of dough for two kinds of rolls though. Bread isn't very laborious to make but it is time consuming so I prefer to make a recipe in bulk and freeze for later uses. Oh and one of my future recipes will be a dough with mashed potato in it. It sounds interesting but somewhat unappealing. At least sweet potato or pumpkin are more acceptable. Well, we'll see. Is bread made with mashed vegetables really superior? I'm itching to find out. If I were to draw parallels with cake, I would guess that the bread would turn out super moist, just like carrot cake because of the shredded carrots in it.

Coming back to these buns, they are christened so because their filling, a coconut pastry cream, is made with coconut cream. Or, you could understand it by omitting pastry from "coconut pastry cream". They are topped with streusel again, as if they were casual tea time cakes. This entire recipe is inspired by Baking by Flavour. Again. (I love that book, I can't help it.) I don't know if I can say inspired, because I just replaced the individual components in the recipe with my own.

The coconut pastry cream was something I came up with spontaneously. Rather than use regular milk and coconut extract, I used coconut cream thinned with a bit of milk. I just happened to have it on hand, if not, I would have gone the coconut extract route. I can't tell you how lucky I am to have coconut cream because the taste it gives to the final product is far superior than the artificial harshness from the extract. I always thought that coconut extract with milk would yield a taste similar to coconut milk and such but I have been proven completely and utterly wrong. The results are worlds apart. The sad truth is that extract is so much more lasting and convenient than the real stuff. Unless the recipe calls for a significant amount of coconut milk, I would revert back to coconut extract. Grudgingly, of course.

The filling is so good you could eat it by the bowlful when warm and fragrant. Honest. Make more so you can frost the tops of the buns, your fingers and your face with it.

Coconut Cream Coffee Cake Buns
makes 2

1/3 recipe of my favourite bread recipe
your favourite streusel recipe, with some shredded coconut mixed in
coconut pastry cream filling, recipe below

For the filling:
40ml coconut cream
40ml milk
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp + 1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
pinch of salt
1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Combine the the coconut cream and milk in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer over low heat.

Whisk the egg yolk, sugar, cornstarch and salt in a bowl. Gradually stream in the hot milk mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the resulting mixture back into the saucepan. Whisking constantly, cook until the mixture reaches a boil and has thickened. Off the heat, whisk in the vanilla extract. Cool completely before using. You can also make this a day before and store in the fridge.

Assembly: When the bread dough has been deflated after its first rise, roll it out into a rectangle and spread the coconut pastry cream on the surface. Roll up the dough and slice into 2 equal parts. Place in a small baking pan to rise until doubled.

Preheat oven to 350F. Meanwhile, top the rolls with your streusel mixed with shredded coconut. Make sure that the clumps of streusel are not too big or they wouldn't cook in time.

Bake for 14 minutes or until the rolls are lightly browned.