pineapple bun

These delicious homemade pineapple buns are made EXTRA easy with a shortcut: using store-bought fluffy sweet rolls as the &quot;bun.&quot; No need to fuss with a dough, and they turn out so good!

Easy Homemade Pineapple Buns

Hawaiian sweet rolls ((or other soft dinner rolls))

g butter, softened ((~1/4 cup for 8 rolls))

g sugar ((~1/4 cup for 8 rolls))

flour

tsp vanilla extract

tsp baking soda

tsp baking powder

In a bowl, mix softened butter with sugar until smooth. Add 1 egg yolk and vanilla extract, and mix until incorporated.

Sift in flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Mix until all the flour disappears.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and roll into an even log. Refrigerate for 20-30 min to allow it to firm up.

After 20-30 mins, remove the plastic wrap and cut it into 8 even pieces. I used a kitchen scale to make sure each piece was the same weight but that&#39;s optional!

Roll each piece into a ball, then press it flat in between plastic wrap until it’s 1/4 inch thick. Repeat with the rest.

Make the cookie topping

Preheat your oven to 375F (convection off). Separate the Hawaiian sweet rolls, and place on a wire rack on a baking tray (this ensures the bottoms don&#39;t burn). Lay a cookie topping on each roll. Using a butterknife, gently indent a crosshatch pattern (optional) but don’t cut all the way through.

Whisk or beat an egg in a bowl, and lightly brush the cookie tops with this egg wash.

If your oven uses convection heat (it distributes heat with a fan), you may want to use aluminum foil to create a protective wall around your baking tray to prevent your rolls from getting too toasty.

Bake for 13-15 min or until cookie tops are golden. They’re best enjoyed slightly warm!

Bake the pineapple buns

These brown butter sugar cookies feature a &quot;bolo&quot; topping (the crumbly sweet layer of a pineapple bun, which ironically contains no pineapple, and can be found at any Chinese bakery). These cookies are the perfect mix of salty and sweet, crisp and chewy — a perfect bite for any bolobao lover. You can also add salted duck egg yolks if you want to add another layer of flavor, but these taste great either way!

Bolo Bao Cookies

60 g Unsalted Butter (cold)

60 g Granulated sugar

Egg Yolks

Tbsp Bird's custard Powder*

tsp Diamond brand kosher salt (for table salt, use half)

120 g all purpose flour (gold medal brand)

almond extract

butter

sugar

brown sugar

g bread flour

dry milk powder

duck egg yolks** (optional)

water

salt

To a food processor, add the sugar, custard powder, baking powder, and salt. Blitz for about a minute, then add all purpose flour and blitz again.

Add the butter and pulse until the butter completely &quot;disappears&quot; into the mixture — it&#39;ll have the texture of lightly wet sand. Add egg yolks and almond extract and continue processing just until the mixture pulls together.

Dump the loose dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap and firmly but swiftly press the pieces together, kneading lightly if needed, to form a more cohesive dough. If the dough is too crumbly and won&#39;t come together, you can wet your hands and flick just a bit of water onto the dough — just until it comes together. Wrap the dough in the plastic and roll into a neat log shape. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Prepare the Topping

Add butter to a medium-sized, light colored pot or pan. Heat on medium until butter melts, then stir, scraping the bottom constantly, with a heatproof spatula until you see brown bits at the bottom of the pan. This browning process can happen quickly and may end up burning if you&#39;re not watching carefully! *As soon as* the butter solids turn light brown, pour the butter into a medium-sized mixing bowl to help stop the cooking.

Add sugar, brown sugar, and salt to the hot butter and CAREFULLY stir to combine. Let rest at room temperature, giving the mixture a couple stirs with a whisk every 10-15 minutes or so until the mixture is warm (not hot), becomes cohesive (but not completely solid/firm), and starts to lighten in color/become opaque as you whisk. This can take anywhere from 20-60 minutes total depending on the season/the temperature of your house. If your kitchen is very warm you can do this step in the refrigerator but you&#39;ll want to make sure the mixture remains soft and doesn&#39;t completely harden.

Give the cooled mixture a good stir to &quot;fluff&quot; it up. Add baking powder, baking soda, and milk powder and mix to combine well.

Add egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract and mix well to combine before adding the bread flour and gently folding it in. Once flour is moistened, mix well to combine. The dough may feel a touch on the dry side, but just continue mixing until incorporated. IF USING SALTED EGG YOLKS — crumble the yolks in with your finger tips towards the end of adding the flour and stir to combine.

Make the Cookie Dough

Preheat oven to 350F.

Remove topping from the refrigerator, unwrap, and carefully slice into 12 discs. If the discs crumble as you&#39;re cutting them, simply grab the pieces and press/squeeze/gently knead them in your hand, warming them slightly. They should come together. Set aside.

Scoop egg-sized balls of dough and roll between your hands to achieve a smooth ball (I use a ~2 Tbsp cookie scoop for this). Place balls 3&quot; apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Taking one disc of topping between your fingers, gently pinch, press, and rotate the disk until it&#39;s about 2&quot; in diameter (quite a bit larger than the diameter of the dough balls). Dust your fingers and work surface lightly with flour if you experience any sticking.UPDATE: I&#39;ve done a lot of experimentation and while the technique above works, this is what I do now. Grab a disc of topping and place it on a cutting board or clean flat surface. Use the heel of your hand to push down and forward to flatten and spread the disc out into and irregular circle about 1.5-2&quot; in diameter. The goal is to create some uneven thickness in the disc, which helps to create that characteristic pineapple texture. Use a bench scraper to swiftly scrape the flattened disc off the surface and transfer it to the cookie dough. I&#39;ll link a reference video below so you can see how I do it.***

Gently drape the topping circle over each dough ball without pressing it down, so the topping circle is sitting on top of the dough ball almost like a UFO (it&#39;s ok if it sags or drapes down on its own).

To make the egg wash, mix egg yolk, water, and salt in a small dish until well combined.

Brush the top of each topping layer with egg yolk mixture. Bake for 12 minutes at 350F, then turn on the top broiler of your oven to 450F and broil for 2-3 minutes until the bolo topping starts to brown. Keep an eye on your cookies here and move the pan around as necessary to ensure each cookie receives some color — you may leave the oven door open during this step as well.You can also skip the broiling step entirely and just bake the cookies at 350F for an additional 3-5 minutes until golden brown at the edges, but your bolo topping will end up on the pale side.

Remove cookies from oven and wait 5 minutes, then transfer each cookie to a cooling rack to finish cooling. I find these are best enjoyed once completely cool, as it gives the bolo topping time to firm up correctly.

Assembly and Baking

Not necessarily a review of the recipe as I haven’t made it yet, but the recipe looks so easy to and I can’t wait! Just wondering if I can substitute bread flour for regular flour?

Turned out so good! I had to skip the custard powder and dry milk powder due to time crunch, but they were still amazing. I made smaller scale cookies to get more! Added some yellow food coloring to the topping to get that extra golden color. The brown butter made these delicious, will be making again!

Made these. Family loved them. Recipe made more cookies than noted but not a bad problem to have.

SO SCRUMP!!! Saw your instagram reel and had to make these. Didn't have custard powder so I omitted it. Also didn't have almond extract so I subbed coconut (not sure if it made a difference). Cookies turned out great, super easy to follow this recipe:)

I'm so glad you're sharing this! My dad has not been back to Hong Kong in years and I hope this will satisfy him until then. For the topping portion, can I use a blender instead of a food processor? Thank you!

I'm so glad you shared this! My dad has not been back to Hong Kong in years and one of his favorites foods from there is bolo bao with a huge slab of butter, I'm hoping that this will satisfy him until his next trip! For the topping portion, would I be able to use a blender instead of a food processor? Thank you!

So good! Easy to follow recipe and it came out beautifully!! Thanks for this gem of a recipe!

Made this with gluten free flour and it works almost as good. Flavor and texture are amazing. The powdered milk also made the gluten free cookie way more fluffy and crispy than usual gf cookies! (I did 1/3 oat flour and 2/3 1:1 gf flour using the same measurements as the original) Only thing is, gf flour made the topping so crumbly it wasn't sliceable or moldable but I just slammed chunks into the cookie and hoped for the best and it still turned out. I'll try to fix that next time by either adding less flour than the original recipe or adjusting with a teaspoon of extra egg yolk stolen from the egg wash.

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Top 2 pineapple bun recipes from across the web

The most viewed pineapple bun recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engineic_arrow_forward_48px

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Easy Homemade Pineapple Buns

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The most viewed pineapple bun recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine