Are Gluten Free Chinese Steamed Bao Possible?

Ever since I succeeded in making decent tasting gluten free pot stickers, I’ve been curious about making gluten free bao (Chinese steamed buns). I’d read about a Filipino technique of making their siopao from rice flour, but the recipes posted online were not well received. But if the Filipino rice flour bao did work, the dough would provide an answer for cooks obsessed with conquering super white steamed bao. My inquiring mind wanted to know.

I perused the ingredient labels of gluten free bread at my local health food store and Whole Foods, and noticed that rice flour was often one of the main ingredients. That was a plus. Then I reread the Bob’s Red Mill information on their website and the label for their all-purpose baking flour. The company said that you can use the flour blend of garbanzo bean flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, white sorghum flour, and fava bean flour – along with some xantham gum for good slimy measure to replicate the texture of wheat flour gluten. Another plus. The commercial gluten free breads I’d studied also contained xantham gum (a natural carbohydrate derived from bacteria). Seemed like a theme here.

So yesterday, I went at it, using rice flour (purchased froma  healthfood store, not an Asian market) and xantham gum for one batch, and Bob’s Red Mill all-purpose baking flour and xantham gum for the another batch. All I did was use those flours as a substitute for the regular all-purpose flour in the Basic Yeasted Dough (famian, page 92 in Asian Dumplings). As expected, the dough had little resiliency like you’d normally expect with wheat flour dough. That is, press your finger into gluten free bao dough and the indentation remains. Plus the dough tend to be on the dry, very firm side with some cracks in it. Here’s a look at dough from Bob’s Red Mill (top) and rice flour (bottom):

Then I let them rise for 1 hour – during which very little happened. There was about a 10 percent increase in volume and the dough softened a tad. I was hopeful. There was a decidedly fermenty odor to the rice flour dough but I’ve had fermented rice flour stuff before. No big deal.

Shaping the bao was not bad, though without the elastic pull of wheat gluten, you can’t make pretty pleats. I decided to steam the bao with the pleat side down. (Here’s a dumpling tip: If your bao don’t look great, steam them pleated side down as smooth domes. No one will be the wiser. Chinese cooks often take that approach to mark bao that contain sweet fillings; savory bao are mostly cooked pleat side up.) I also rolled out dough to fashioned steamed Chinese rolls, the kind you’d stuff with Japanese braised pork belly or Chinese red-cooked pork belly.

Even though the dough did not rise during their cozy warm rest, I held on to my optimism and let them sit for 10 minutes before steaming. They did expand ever so slightly. Then into the steamer they went. I watched through the glass lid and the buns rose – or was that me looking through the wet glass which distorted everything? After 15 minutes, not much had changed and I turned off the steamer, detaching the steamer tray to let the bao cool. They actually deflated to look more-or-less like their raw state. I took a bite and they were super heavy, not good tasting. I could barely swallow. My husband refused to even try them. They went into the trash.

I won’t leave you in suspense much longer. Here’s a photo of the raw (top) and cooked gluten-free bao (bottom):



Not very exciting, huh? The lessons here are that steamed heat is tricky work with when it comes to yeasted dough. Just because you can bake gluten free bread doesn’t mean you can steam yeast bao dough. Additionally, there are many time-honored, gluten free classics in the Asian dumpling repertoire, such as those made with sticky rice and rice rolls made from steamed rice sheets (see the "Transformations of Rice" chapter in Asian Dumplings). Bao are an ancient food and if there was a gluten-free steamed bao, the Chinese would have figured it out a very long time ago.

Nevertheless, I had to try it out for myself. Sometimes you lose some, sometimes you win some. If you have any insights (maybe a different flour?), do weigh in. Maybe we can come up with a gluten free bao. I have not given up -- yet.

Comments

[Inez]

please don't give up, I've only been gluten-free for a little over a year and I miss yum cha a lot. Thanks to your book I can now have some of the things I miss but bao are also a favourite.

[Andrea Nguyen]

Inez, thanks for the interest and support! Indeed, there are lots of gluten free Asian dumplings in the cookbook. Give them a whirl. In the mean time, I'll ponder and tinker on bao.

[Diane]

I find it fascinating that you write about your failures! It's very interesting to all of us who want more info on how things work.

For many, many years I have had a fear of baking - despite being a good, fearless - and improvisatory - savory cook. But dough? Bread? Sweets? They scared me to death because I've had too many instances of swapping out one thing for another, or throwing in ingredient "B" as an extra into the recipe, or eyeballing amounts of things (hey a handful is almost a cup, right?), and having Titanic-scale disasters result. Plus mom, being the original health-food mama, never baked at all. But as I learn more, I get less afraid, and my skills improve. It feels very comforting to me to learn about WHY you need to do things, and what happens if you don't.

So thanks for sharing this with us - really interesting.

[Andrea Nguyen]

My pleasure Diane. I've luckily had more successes than failures. You learn something new every time! It's just food, though I tend to be my worse critic.

[Eve]

I think you're right about how if there was a simple way to make a good gluten-free steamed bao, the Chinese would have worked it out long ago, seeing as there are already so many things done with rice flour there.

My only suggestion - have you considered trying a quickbread-type soda-acid dough rather than a yeasted dough? Like making an Irish soda bread, only steamed. You'd have to shape the bao very quickly because the chemical reaction starts as soon as the liquid touches the baking powder, but it might be worth a go.

[miranda]

I dont think a quick bread will work. :( they dont usually do moisture well. Are you measureing cup for cup? that may not do. it dosent with most recipes. try less flour and a mixture. rice flour and potato or tapioca starch maybe. lots of extra yeast. I think first you need to figure what will rise. But I think for GF flours there may be too much moisture. maybe the oven with a pan of ice instead? those are my input. now did you say tasty potstickers? GF even? oh yah im in! YUM! I miss those.

[Dresia]

Host steamy Bao is one of the things I miss a lot too. I experimented with bao and mantou and they turned out quite well.

Compared to baked gf breads, the steamed buns taste a lot moister and edible to me.

You're on the right track, I added a lot more water and whisked it in the cake mixer. The final yeast dough should be sticky and sloppy. I dished it into large paper cupcake holders then steamed as normal.

They taste and look like normal bao.

[Upsorn]

Dresia,
My gluten free bao didn’t turn out like normal Bao(at all what so ever). The dough was sticky and sloppy alright. What are the steps you did? If you don't my me asking a couple of questions.
1. Did you proof the yeast first?
2. Did you let the dough raise before you stuff it? I let mind raised for about 50 minutes. It raised about 50-60%. I didn’t let it sit after the stuffing process before putting in the steamer. The result was the Bao turned out to have the dumpling texture (chewy) instead of puffy cake like. Please advise

Thank you,
Upsorn

[Andrea Nguyen]

Hello Upsorn, The dough just doesn't rise much, just as you experienced. It's sad, heavy dough. I have not been able to figure it out yet! Sorry.

Who is Dresia?

[amanda]

A local cafe makes gluten free boa. Looks like brown rice flour used. Taste little heavy, moist, firm good!

[Upsorn]

Hi Andrea,
Sorry for late reply. Dresia is the person who post the comment above mine. She said that she used more water than your recipe and her gluten free bao taste like normal, wheat, bao. I tried that but I didn’t get the result like what she said. However, the other pot stickers recipes are awesome. I’ve been freezing some. I’m enjoying it.

Thanks for your yummy recipies

Upsorn

P.S. love your book so much.

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[KrisD]

Andrea, I love the book! Did you try baked rolls at all with the bao dough? I thought I might try using gluten-free biscuit dough...

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[Sarah K]

I just made some pretty good gluten free bao. I used a mixture of Mochiko, white rice, garbonzo, and coconut flours. Even my husband liked them, and he doesn't usually like the texture of gluten free doughs.

[kendra]

Sarah K - do you have a recipe for the bao you made with mochiko, garbanzo, and coconut flours?

[roy giron]

Hi, saw your technique in folding the dumpling, very helpful, one question - how come when I try to steam/cooked my bun with the pleats in the bottom and the smooth surface upwards, the end result is a wrinkled surface. but the bun is soft and white even when it cools down. I cooked a 70 gram bun for 10 to 15 minutes only and usually used all purpose flour, instant dry yeast, baking powder, granulated sugar, shortening and of course water for the dough. pleased help regarding wrinkled siopao bun. Thanks

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[Liv]

Hi, I've worked hard and come up with a great bao recipe with a wonderful flavor and texture! Please give it a try!

http://livglutenfree.com/blog/wow-gluten-free-bao

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