Hello and welcome back. In today’s quiet vlog I’m making vegan crispy bottomed ‘bao’ or Chinese vegetable filled buns. It’s Lunar New Year this weekend, and my city is decorated with lights and lanterns for the festival, which inspired me to give this recipe a go. Happy Year of the Dragon to those of you who celebrate! I also spend some time working on my natural dye quilt, as it’s now time to attach the binding. Lastly, I baked some biscuits, they’re heart shaped cut out biscuits and would make a lovely recipe for Valentine’s day. They’re similar to Jammie Dodgers!
I made the filling for my bao with ingredients I had in my fridge, you can use all sorts of things as a filling. For the dough, I made a 60% hydration dough with 500g all purpose flour, 300g warm water, 1tsp instant yeast, and 1tsp salt. For the method, watch the video.
Here’s another recipe for you, and the one that inspired me to try making these. I didn’t follow it exactly, but rather used it as inspiration.
Vegan Jammie Dodger / heart shaped biscuits recipe:
150g all purpose flour
50g caster sugar
80g vegan margarine
1tsp vanilla extract
Mix the ingredients together and form the dough into a ball. Place the dough into the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes, it’ll make rolling and shaping easier. Use biscuit cutters to make the shapes, and bake at 160C for 12 – 15 minutes. I rolled mine out to 5mm or 1/4 inch thick. Once cool, use jam to stick them together. I used strawberry jam.
The quilt binding tutorial is here:
https://www.farmandfolk.com/blog/2019/11/13/quilt-binding-tutorial
If you’re new to my channel, hi! My name is Stéphanie and here on Eighteen and Cloudy I share peaceful, slow paced videos about living a simple, sustainable, vegan lifestyle in a big city. My videos feature my organic vegetable garden, the vegan recipes I make and bake, and my hobbies and other projects. I love heritage crafts and making useful things with my hands. At the moment I’m making a quilt with fabric I dyed with plants I foraged last summer. It’s slow work, but very enjoyable.
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00:00 Intro.
00:18 Making vegan bao (pan-fried).
07:12 Binding my quilt and dye garden plans.
11:16 Vegan jammie dodgers recipe (heart cut out cookies).
#slowliving #sustainableliving #veganlife
This week marks the halfway point of winter. I’m really starting to notice the later sunsets, and I’m on spring watch, searching for little signs of life. It’s Lunar New Year this weekend, the coming year is the Year of the Dragon. Lunar New Year is not part of my cultural heritage,
But I love seeing the lights and decorations in my city. Birmingham’s Lunar New Year festival is a big event, with lots of traditional Chinese dancing and street food. Today I’m making pan fried vegetable buns. They have crispy tops and bottoms, and a tofu, mushroom, leek, and cabbage filling.
I’ll share the recipe in the description. There are many different ways to make stuffed buns, Chinese ‘bao’ are most commonly steamed, and the filling can be made with almost anything. The only requirement is that it’s not too wet, otherwise the buns become soggy.
Filled buns are a popular dish in many parts of China, and I’m sure there are lots of regional variations. In other countries too, there are variations of these buns. There are so many different ways that humans have found, to wrap meat or vegetables in bread or pastry,
To make a filling and portable meal. From savoury buns to pasties, pastries, or dumplings, every region of the world has a version of this dish. The dough I made for these buns is leavened with yeast, it’s quite a firm dough, made with 60% hydration.
I use baker’s percentages for all the breads I make, it’s such a simple way of thinking about and making bread. My pan is non-stick, but I’ve used some vegetable oil too. I can fit seven buns in the pan at once, leaving a little bit of space for them to puff up.
At this point, I could have added some water to steam them, and that’s the traditional Chinese method. I like crispy buns though, so I’m going to fry both sides. The tops cook quicker than the bottoms, as the dough is thinner on the top. Serve warm, with a simple dipping sauce.
This afternoon, I’m working on my quilt. I’ve shared some of the previous steps in my other vlogs, and today I’m attaching the binding. Sara Buscaglia who shares her work as ‘Farm and Folk’, has a brilliant quilt binding tutorial on her website, which I’ll link in the description for you.
Sara’s work and teachings have really inspired me, in my own work, including this natural dye quilt. This quilt is dyed with colours I made with wild plants, but this year I plan to try and grow dye plants too. I’m growing madder, for natural reds, although I’ll need to be patient,
As it takes three years of growth before the first harvest. I’m also going to try and grow indigo and woad, both plants give beautiful shades of blue. Then I’m trying dyer’s chamomile, coreopsis, and marigolds. I’m very excited. I really can’t wait for spring to arrive! I’m attaching the binding by machine,
But I’ll hand stitch the other side for an invisible finish. Now I’m pinning the binding so that I can hand stitch it. I made the binding with scraps from the quilt top. He’s supervised every step of this quilt, but he’s easily distracted by magpies!
Invisible stitching the binding down will take a long time, but for me, the joy is in the making. I love slow work, and making things from scratch. I’ll miss working on this quilt once it’s finished, but I’m excited to design and plan my next quilt too. I’m making some heart shaped biscuits,
They’re like jammie dodgers. I’ll share the recipe in the description. Strawberry jam. Thank you for watching, see you next week.
2 Comments
❤Lovely lovely lovely! 🎉🎉🎉Thankyou Stephanie 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
This is really such a beautiful quilt! Love to see the progress! <3