Steam bun & Chinese pastry 馒头烧饼

Chinese steamed buns (Mantou) and Chinese street-style pastry (Shaobing) are my girls’ favorites. My childhood memory of daily breakfast was eating them with porridge, soy milk or tea. Chinese steamed buns have a plain inside and normally are sweet. (I don’t know why my girls prefer the plain ones more than stuffed buns.)  I add sugar and milk powder for my girls. Chinese pastry (Shaobing) can be made with or without stuffing, and can be sweet or savory. I grow up in Jiangsu which is famous for Huangqiao shaobing (Huang qiao -Yellow Bridge is a town in Northern Jiangsu province). The story is about the locals delivering the pastry to front line soldiers and helping to win the national war. The pastry is named for that and has become famous. The traditional Huangqiao pastry is made with lard. For health concerns, I changed it to butter. Here, I only provide three kinds: long shaped, savory and plain, savory stuffed with shredded pork, and sweet (in a round shape). Hope you are the lucky one to grab it when I sell them at the market, since it takes some time to make them.