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The cocktail bun () is a 
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
-style sweet bun with a filling of shredded coconut. It is one of several iconic types of baked goods originating from Hong Kong.
History
The cocktail bun is said to have been created in the 1950s in Hong Kong, when the proprietors of a bakery resisted the wasteful disposal of unsold but perfectly edible buns. The solution was to incorporate these buns into a new product to be sold fresh. The day-old buns were ground up, with sugar and coconut added in, to create a tasty filling mixture; fresh bread dough was wrapped around this mixture to make the first filled "cocktail bun". Its name is said to have come from comparing the baker's mixture of hodgepodge of ingredients to abartender
A bartender (also known as a barkeep, barman, barmaid, or a mixologist) is a person who formulates and serves alcoholic or soft drink beverages behind the bar, usually in a licensed establishment as well as in restaurants and nightclubs, but ...
's exotic mixture of alcoholic liquors, both formulating a "cocktail". The Chinese name is a literal translation of "cocktail", and is called a "chicken-tail bun".
Production
Originally, the filling was made of blending day-old buns withgranulated sugar
White sugar, also called table sugar, granulated sugar, or regular sugar, is a commonly used type of sugar, made either of beet sugar or cane sugar, which has undergone a refining process.
Description
The refining process completely removes ...
. Newer versions saw the addition of shredded coconut and butter
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condimen ...
or margarine to the recipe, which are now key ingredients in the cocktail bun filling. Each bun is approximately 6 to 8 inches long and 2 to 3 inches high in the shape of a small baguette.
The cocktail bun can be found in many Chinese bakeries along with other popular sweet buns like the pineapple bun
A pineapple bun () is a kind of sweet bun predominantly popular in Hong Kong and also common in Chinatowns worldwide. Despite the name, it does not traditionally contain pineapple; rather, the name refers to the look of the characteristic top ...
, which also originated from Hong Kong.
Texture
The bun itself is soft, pliable and lightly sweet, typical of Hong Kong-style breads. The coconut-based filling is dense and has a rich, buttery and sweet flavour. A final egg wash to the exterior lends a shiny, golden-brown color to the tops, which are further decorated with stripes or other simple designs using some of the buttery coconut filling, and often finished with a sprinkling of sesame seeds. The Taiwanese version of the cocktail bun is slightly firmer than its Hong Kong counterpart, but still maintains the same filling and sesame seed dusting.See also
*List of buns
This is a list of buns. A bun is a small, sometimes sweet, bread, or bread roll. Though they come in many shapes and sizes, they are most commonly hand-sized or smaller, with a round top and flat bottom.
Buns
A
* Anpan - A bun that is filled, us ...
* List of stuffed dishes
This is a list of stuffed dishes, comprising dishes and foods that are prepared with various fillings and stuffings. Some dishes are not actually stuffed; the added ingredients are simply spread atop the base food, as one cannot truly stuff an oy ...
*
References
External links
* {{Hong Kong bread Hong Kong breads Sweet breads Foods containing coconut Chinese breads Buns Stuffed desserts