Have you ever tried the baozi? Or maybe you have seen the amazing Pixar cartoon with the cutest alive bao bun? I know I’m kind of an adult, but me and Manuel both love cartoons even now, and this is surely one of the sweetest! And tastiest! 🙂 Here are these beautiful baozi or the amazing Pixar cartoon buns.

It does get a bit scary at one point as the poor alive bun gets eaten, so you start thinking maybe it’s too sad to make them and eat them, but you will see that in the end the whole story is about love and family!

Isn’t it the sweetest thing? I tried to make these little babies the first time last year during the full lockdown here in Spain, so I used the ingredients I had in the fridge at that point, but this is the recipe from the real Pixar Bao bun filling. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! The making, cooking and the eating! 🙂

Here is the recipe of another kind of filling for the bao dumplings for you!

Bao dumplings from the Pixar cartoon

Tasty bao dumplings, aka, baozi from the recipe of the cute Pixar animation. These are excellent steamed, and fried the next day, if any are left.

Pin Recipe

Prep Time 2 hrs

Cook Time 20 mins

Total Time 2 hrs 20 mins

Course Appetizer, Main Course, Snack

Cuisine Chinese

Servings 4 people

Equipment

• Bamboo steamer

Ingredients

  

Bao dough

• 500 g white flour
• 250 g tepid water
• ¾ tsp dry active yeast (use double, if using fresh yeast)

Filling

• 500 g ground meat The original recipe calls for pork, I had mixed pork and beef
• 500 g Chinese cabbage
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• 3 tsp chopped spring onion
• 3 tsp cooking wine I used dry white wine
• 1 tsp olive oil extra virgin
• 1 egg
• ½ tsp chicken stock powder I didn't have, so I put some Marmite for the umaminess
• salt and pepper

Instructions

 

Making the dough

• Mix the flour with water and the yeast. You should mix the dough well in a mixer for about 10min, so if mixing by hand, try to kneed for about 15min The result of the dough should be very smooth. Cover and leave in a warm place to grow for about 2 hours.

Filling

• Cook half of the ground meat and mix it with the raw meat.
• Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl, I like to mix by hand as that is the best way all the ingredients will be well incorporated.

Making the dumpling wrappers

• Once the dough has risen after two hours, kneed it quickly once more to return it to its original size.
• Roll out the dough and cut equal sizes of small balls that you will roll out with a rolling pin afterwards. You can see the step-by-step video below.

  Don't roll out the wrapper too thin so it doesn't break and lose all the goodness.

Cooking

• Fill all the dumplings and put them in a bamboo steaming basket with the cooking paper underneath, so they don't stick to the bottom. DON'T crowd the dumplings, they will stick together and when cooked they will break where they are all stuck together. It's better do do various baskets with fewer dumplings for a better result.
• Put on a pot with water and put everything on the fire. Start counting the 15-20 min cooking of the dumplings from the moment the water starts boiling.
• Serve them hot with soy sauce, on you can prepare your own sauce with some soy sauce, a splash of water, rice vinegar and some ginger, for example.
  

Video

Keyword Bao, dumpling, ground meat, wheat flatbread