Peelable Orange 🍊 Cartoon Fruit and Vegetable Imitation Orange-Shaped Steamed Bun

Dough: Steam the pumpkin, drain off the water, and mash it into puree using a sieve or blender. Cool it down and take 85g, mix with 1.5g of yeast and 150g of flour, knead into a smooth dough (about 15 minutes). White dough: Mix 23g of water, 0.5g of yeast, and 50g of flour, knead into a smooth dough (about 5 minutes). You can refer to my basic steamed bun video for detailed kneading steps.

Making: Take out 120g of the pumpkin dough and set aside. Mix the remaining portion with a bit of red yeast rice powder to create an orange color and knead evenly. Divide the 120g pumpkin dough into 6 pieces of 20g each, knead and roll each piece into a smooth ball. These will be the filling and don’t need to be too smooth. Cover to avoid drying. Flatten the orange-colored dough and white dough using a pasta machine or rolling pin, and use a dumpling skin cutter to cut out 6 circles. The orange dough should be slightly thicker than the white dough (13g per orange circle, 10g per white circle). Being the outer layer, the orange dough should be smoother and free of bubbles. Lay all white circles over orange circles, brush water in between to increase adhesion, and then brush oil over the white circles. Wrap each pumpkin dough ball with the laminated dough, keeping the pumpkin side facing up. Seal tightly without trapping air, and you’ve finished most of the work.

Making: Take a portion of the remaining white dough and mix it with spinach powder to make green dough, flatten it, and set aside. Take an orange dough ball and use a small tool to press a small indentation in the center top. Use tools to create five indentations radiating outward from the center (to simulate orange segments), or use a toothpick if tools are unavailable. Use a mold to create leaves from the green dough and place them on one side of the indentation, or create an oval shape if molds are unavailable. Place a tiny star or small green circle in the center as a stem, and place a tiny piece of white dough at the top as a section. Bundle about 10 toothpicks together and poke small holes all over the orange surface to mimic an orange's texture. Poke several holes without using too much force.

Fermenting: You can use the extra dough to make smaller oranges. Ferment with water temperature at 36–40°C, enough water to steam the buns, and gauging fermentation time based on your speed of making them. If you’re slow, fermentation will finish quickly; if you’re fast, it needs longer. The signs of readiness: slight rebound when lightly touched and feeling light when picked up. Let the dough expand to about 1.5 times its original size. Steam on medium heat for 15 minutes, let stand for 5 minutes. Once done, allow the steamed buns to cool down before peeling them open!

Peeling

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