I want to warn you that these soft and juicy coconut buns are extremely addicting. The secret is in the coconut sauce, which you pour on fully proofed, unbaked buns. As soon as you take the first bite of these sweet, melting in your mouth delicious buns you will definitely fall in love with this recipe.
| Ready in: 36 hours | Serves: 6-8 people |
| Yield: 9 x 60g Rolls | Units: US, EU |
Ingredients
Sweet Stiff Sourdough Starter
- 8 g sourdough starter
- 30 g water
- 60 g bread flour
- 5g sugar
Dough
- 250 g bread flour (100%)
- 75 g milk
- 50 g condensed milk
- 75 g sweet stiff starter
- 1 large egg
- 20 g sugar
- 50 g soft butter
- 5 g salt (2%)
- 0.5 g dry yeast (optional, to reduce sourness)
Coconut sauce
- 400g(1 can) coconut milk
- 90g sugar
- 1 tsp corn starch
- Pinch of salt
Directions
Day 1
Starter
- 10 pm dissolve sugar in the water, add starter and whisk together, add flour, mix well, form a ball, place in jar, cover let sit at room temp 74-78F until it increases in volume in 2 or more times.
- Stiff sweet starter will have lower hydration then regular liquid starter and will help us to lower the acidity of final product (learn how to make sourdough starter from scratch here).
Day 2
Dough
- 8 am in a bowl of stand mixer add milk, condensed milk, an egg, sugar, stiff sourdough starter (75 g) to the flour and let autolyse for 1 hour.
- During the autolyse period the flour becomes fully hydrated. This activates gluten development.
- 9 am mix dough on low speed of your mixing machine for 2-3 minutes, or KitchenAid on speed 3 for 3-4 minutes until well incorporated.
- Add salt mix for a couple more minutes. The dough should form a ball.
- Add soft butter, increase the speed of mixer, mix for 10 more minutes until the dough is well incorporated and comes up together. You will be able to perform windowpane test.
- Cover and let it proof for 3-4 hours at 76-80F/ 24-28C.
- During that time perform 2 stretches and folds.
- The dough should become slightly puffy.
- 1 pm transfer the dough to the fridge for cold fermentation for 6-9 hours.
- 10 pm Remove the dough from the fridge.
- Divide on 9 equal pieces (about 60g each)
- Pinch all edges to the bottom of a roll, try to round it tightly.
- Transfer the shaped rolls into the square baking pan.
- Cover rolls and let them proof overnight for 8 -10 hours 70-74F /20-23C until they double in volume.
- Prepare the coconut sauce by mixing all ingredients together and boiling it over medium heat until it will get thickened. Cover and let cool off until next morning.
Day 3
- 7 am Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Pour coconut sauce over proofed buns.
- Sprinkle some coconut on top of each bun.
- Bake 375F for 15 min, then 350F for 13-15 min more until golden brown.
- Serve buns while they are still warm, scoop some coconut sauce from the tray and pour it on top of the bun.
Enjoy!
When you say condensed milk, do you mean sweetened condensed milk or evaporated milk? Both are condensed milk. Thank you for clarifying.
Hi!
Sorry for confusion!
Sweetened condensed milk
These buns look amazing! I can’t wait to try them. What do you usually do with the remainder of the can of condensed milk? I hate to waste it. Could i substitute condensed milk for the sugar in the coconut sauce in order to use it up?
Hi Natasha,
thank you for this recipe, these are the best sweet buns I’ve ever baked and eaten! Simply divine! Kind of half-steamed in coconut sauce, would you agree? I have a question about sugar in the stiff starter, is it necessary? What is its purpose?
Thank you!
Thank you do much for your feedback.
Usually sugar added to reduce sourness of the stiff starter.
Hi Nat,
You’re right! These buns are extremely addicting 😄 I was hesitant at first to use all the 400gr coconut cream so I only pour half of it. But then after I pour the cream over the buns after they came out of the oven , I understand why I need another half 😀 Finally I baked separately the other half of coconut cream in another tray. So, my advice to others: never hesitate to pour all your 400gr coconut cream over the buns! 😉
Thanks for your awesome recipe, Natasha!!
Henny, thank you so much for your feedback 🙏
Hi,
Can i use dry yeast instead and how much grams if i can use dry yeast ?
Hi!
Yes, use 1% of yeast from total amount of flour.
Hello Natasha! This bun looks so delicious but i don’t have a starter. You mentioned in one of the comments to substitute yeast 1% of the total
Amount of the flour. Should I include the flour from the sweet stiff starter? How can I convert the starter into a non sourdough recipe? And the steps should i follow them as is? Thank you🙏🙏🙏
Dorene, hi!
Use 2-3g of dry yeast
What size of the square baking pan do you use? 8 by 8 ?
Do you grease it?
Yes, it’s 8×8
And yes, it needs to be greased, or use parchment paper 🙏
Can almond milk be substituted for regular milk in this recipe?
Hi!
Yes! Absolutely.
These are called Panipopo in the Samoa.
Hi!
Can we replace an egg by soybean lecithin in this recipe?
If yes, please recommend the proportion🙏
Thank you.