Iced Buns

These Raspberry Iced Buns are a New Zealand Bakery Classic. They have a super soft Tangzhong bread roll, filled with raspberry jam and finished with sweet pink icing. The dough for these soft bread rolls is super versatile and you can divide and use to make a whole range of soft bread roll recipes!

Raspberry Jam Iced Buns

Hi hi! Just popping in here to share the recipe for these Raspberry Jam Iced Buns with you. I developed the recipe for my super soft burger buns a while back, and I am just fully obsessed with how perfect and soft the dough is that I had to turn it into a bunch of other recipes too.

These Raspberry Iced Buns go by many names. We called them 'pink buns' growing up and they are a NZ bakery / supermarket bakery classic. I guess they first originated as a way for bakeries to repurpose bread rolls by filling them with jam and finishing them with icing. Iced buns were the ultimate after school snack.

I of course had to recreate them with my super soft dough. I didn't stray too far from the original - perfect, super soft bun, raspberry jam filling, and a super sweet but very very nostalgic pink icing. They taste just right.

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How to make Frosted Buns

These Raspberry Iced Buns follow the same format as my Super Soft Burger Bun recipe. The dough is exactly the same, they are just made smaller, baked together, then finished with a raspberry jam bun filling and a sweet pink icing.

• Make your Tangzhong - Tangzhong is made by cooking together bread flour and milk in a pan until a thick paste forms. This goes into the bowl of the stand mixer.
• Add cold milk - I borrowed this tip from King Arthur - they add cold milk to the hot Tangzhong to cool it down so it's cool enough that it doesn't kill the yeast.
• Mix in remaining ingredients - Pop everything else except for the butter into the bowl and throw it onto your mixer. Let it mix for about 10-15 mins until it is smooth and elastic and pulling away from the sides.
• Add butter - Room temperature butter goes in and you keep mixing until it is incorporated. This only takes a few minutes. Make sure your butter isn't too soft here or it will get all melty.
• First rise - Shape the dough into a ball and stick it into a bowl. Rise it at room temperature, or see further down the post for instructions on how to do the overnight rise
• Pre-shape your buns - Divide your dough into however many buns you like and give them a quick pre-shape, then rest them for 10 minutes, quickly shape again, and arrange on a pan.
• Do the second rise - This is another room temperature rise, where the dough will get super puffy. The buns will rise together.
• Egg wash and bake - The egg wash helps the buns to bake up beautifully golden. You can use milk here too if you want. I like egg wash. Bake until they are golden brown.
• Fill with Jam - These iced buns are filled with jam. I used raspberry, but you can use whatever you like. Poke a hole in the tops of the buns with a chopstick then pipe the jam into each bun.
• Finish with icing - I finished these iced buns with a super simple bun icing. I made mine pink, same as what I grew up eating, but you're welcome to leave it plain. You can also add some coconut on here too if you like.

Tangzhong Buns

The Tangzhong method used for these iced buns is an Asian Technique, and involves cooking part of the flour and water in a bread recipe to form a thick paste, or a roux. The process of making the Tangzhong gelatanises some of the starch in the flour. This means the flour is able to absorb a lot more water, and also holds onto it throughout the dough making process. This gives an incredibly soft bread which stays soft a lot longer than other bread does. Tangzhong (which is a Chinese word) is made by cooking the liquid and flour together, while the Yudane method (which is Japanese) involves adding boiling liquid to the flour and leaving it to set overnight.

The benefit of using a roux means that the bread dough can stay 'lean' - so very little added fat etc but still stay extremely tender and soft. The Tangzhong means the bread stays soft for a long time, which means these keep and freeze super well. It works perfectly in these iced buns!

One soft bread roll dough, many uses

The thing that I love the most about this Tangzhong based bread dough is how versatile it is. We all know how much I love a base recipe. I truly believe that it is such a great thing to have. You can take one base recipe and master it, then your options are endless. And this dough is such a good example of this (along with my base brioche dough). It can be used in all sorts of applications - savoury and sweet. It can be small batched like in these cheese buns.

The other thing that you can do is to make one batch (or a double), and make a few different shapes from the same dough. You could shape some into burger buns, then some into these iced buns. You could also use this dough for these baked cream buns and shape them into finger buns - I haven't tried this yet but I can't wait as I know they will taste just like how I remember.

Why did my bread rolls go wrinkly?

This dough is super soft and fluffy, so when the buns come out of the oven, they may deflate a little. They go a little wrinkly and get little folds in the edges.

This is totally normal - it just comes from the dough being really soft. Mine always collapse, so do not worry if yours do a little too!

Can this recipe be made without a mixer?

I haven't tried this iced buns recipe without a mixer, but I really do think that this particular recipe needs it. Because the dough needs to develop a lot of strength and is quite sticky, along with having a really long kneading time, it is best that you use the mixer for it.

You are welcome to try making this recipe by hand but I have no idea how it will go. Alternatively my small batch no mixer brioche would work quite well here if you wanted to make a small batch with a different dough. You could double it too to make more rolls!

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How to freeze bread rolls or buns

The great thing about these super soft Tangzhong iced buns is that they are super easy to freeze. If you would like to freeze some of the rolls, do not fill them with jam or frost them. Instead, pop them into a ziploc bag or lightly wrap.

To defrost the rolls, leave to sit at room temperature. You can refresh them in the microwave or oven to freshen. Fill and frost as directed.

How to slow down rising at any time.

If at any time you're making bread and you find you need a little more time while it is rising / you're not ready to bake yet, pop it into the fridge. Putting dough into the fridge slows down the rising time. Just make sure the dough is nicely covered so that it doesn't dry out on the surface.

How to tell when buns are baked

You want to bake these until they are a nice golden brown. However there is another way to check too if you want - you can take their internal temperature using a probe thermometer. For a dough like this, 195°f -200°c (87°c - 93°c) is an indicator that they are done. I often do this just to double check but if you don't have a thermometer you don't need to do this step!

Frequently Asked Questions for Iced Buns

What is Bread Flour in New Zealand?
Bread flour is a higher protein flour - high grade flour works if you are in NZ!

What is a substitute for milk powder?
If you don't have it, you can just leave it out!

Can this recipe be small batched?
These cheese buns are a small batch version of this dough - this dough is also egg free.

Can I use active dry yeast in this recipe?
Yes, that will work just fine. What you need to do is pop the tangzhong in your stand mixer bowl then add the cold milk. Stir around - this will warm the milk up a little. Add the sugar then add the yeast then leave to sit for 5-10 minutes until foamy. Then proceed with the rest of the recipe!

Can the first rise be done overnight?
I haven't tried it, but it should be able to. These have quite a long rise time, so you will want to leave the dough standing out on the counter for 30 minutes or so before putting it into the fridge overnight, just to kick start the rise time. The second rise the next day will take a little longer too as you are starting with cold dough.

Can I use Dairy free milk?
It should work just fine. Use something that is on the creamier side if you can and just do a 1:1 sub for the milk.

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