Here's the formula for baozi dough I've been using. It's more of a northern style dough then Catonese style. That means it's not cake like in texture, nor as sweet. Northern style bao and mantou are chewier.
100 Bread Flour
2 Yeast
2 Oil/Fat
2 Sugar
1 Salt
1 Baking Powder
60 Water
Mixing method: Straight Dough
Whiteness of the finished product wasn't the highest priority for me. It is in China, and a lot depends on type of flour and dough ph. Higher protein levels and higher ph can both make the dough less white.
The filling for this batch I made with:
Dried black/shitake mushrooms
Hand minced chicken breast
Small diced carrot
Minced ginger and garlic
Oyster sauce
Hoisin sauce
Flour/water slurry for thickening
I stir fried the stuff together, added the sauces, and used the slurry to thicken it up. You want a very thick filling, paste like even. With these seasonings, it was a bit close in flavor to classic bbq pork puns.
Make up method for bao is pretty simple. Let dough proof once, section and round off balls, flatten and roll balls (thinner around the edge, thicker in the middle), fill, pleat, short second proof, cook.
The classic cooking method is to put them on a little piece of wax paper and steam them, but I took a technique from Shanghai and cooked them as sheng jian bao. It's esientally the same method as a pot sticker.
Look at the filling to bread ratio, you won't get that from a restaurant!
