Anpan (あんぱん)

I made Anpan on my own for the first time this last week. I’m quite pleased with the results too, so I’d like to share the recipe with the English-speaking world. For those of you who don’t know, Anpan is a small bun with red bean paste baked inside it. In Japan, they are an ubiquitous treat that can be found at nearly any convenience store, bakery, grocery store, etc. In America, they are pretty much non-existent, sadly.

The hardest thing in making these little yummy treats was arriving at the right conversions. In Japanese recipes they give measurements for the ingredients in terms of weight, but we tend towards measurements based on mass. For example, the original recipe called for x grams of flour whereas we’d usually measure flour by the cup. As you can imagine, I had to do a little research on each ingredient to get the conversion just right.

After that, I had to make some substitutions to make the whole thing dairy-free since I am allergic milk. While the original recipe called for milk and butter, I had to switch them out for soy milk and margarine. Since I knew I was making the serious baking faux paux of tampering with a recipe the first time using it, I was nervous my substitutions might screw up the end results, but they turned out better than I had hoped.

Basic Anpan Recipe (makes 24 buns)

Anpan Ingredients

All-purpose Flour
Dry Yeast
Sugar
Salt
Medium Egg
Soymilk
(I used Vanilla, but Plain should work)
Unsalted Margarine
Red Bean Paste
(the premade bagged variety works well)

5-5 ½ cups
3 tsp
4 tbsp
2 tsp
2
1 1/3 cups

6 tbsp
400grams/14oz

Other Ingredients

Another Medium Egg
Black Sesame Seeds

1
as needed

1. In a large bowl combine the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt.
2. Then add the soymilk and eggs, and mix with your hands. Do not be concerned if it sticks to your hands, the margarine will change that shortly.
3. Knead for about 5 minutes before adding the margarine.
4. Add the margarine in single tablespoon doses, and continue kneading for at least 10 minutes. Knead vigorously.
5. Make the dough into a single ball, and let it rise for about an hour. Be sure to cover it so that it doesn’t dry out.
6. Take out the dough and cut it into 24 parts. Make these parts into small balls and give them 15 minutes to rise again.
7. Take the red bean paste and cut it into 24 pieces. Then indent a ball of dough and place a piece of red bean paste into it. Fold in the edges being careful not to get any red bean on the outside of the bun. Close up the bun and place it on an oil sprayed pan.


8. After preparing all 24 buns, let them sit for about 50 minutes. Cover them up again so that they don’t dry out.
9. Beat the remaining medium egg and add a touch of water to make a “wash” for the buns.
10. Using a brush, coat each bun with the wash and add a few sesame seeds to the summit of the buns. The wash will give the Anpan their nice dark color, and the seeds will act as decoration to distinguish them from other buns.
11. Bake the buns in the oven for 14-17 minutes at 350 degrees. You want the buns to darken, but you don’t want to blacken their undersides so monitor them closely the last three minutes. Perhaps even bake them longer.
12. Pull them out of the oven and place them on a rack to cool a bit. Enjoy!

Tip: Try and have all the ingredients at room temperature before you use them. The yeast will rise more properly and the dough will be a bit easier to knead.