Bolo bao and its cousin the bolo yao (which contains a huge slab of cold butter in the middle) are staples of the Hong Kong bakery and dim sum. Despite their name, which means “pineapple bun,” these buns, in fact, contain no pineapple at all, and were named for their physical appearance rather than their contents.
In fact these buns typically feature a crumbly cookie-like topping baked directly atop fluffy milk bread buns. The topping is brushed with egg yolk to give it both its signature glossy sheen as well as its yellow hue.
Bolobao stuffed with egg custard were my favorite treat growing up in LA, but when I moved to the Bay Area for college I quickly learned that the egg custard version was more of a regional specialty and hard to find in Oakland and San Francisco, where the plain bolobao reigned supreme. In my eyes, without the custard, a plain bolobao just became a thin layer of cookie on top of a plain piece of bread — not nearly as appetizing.
I was reminiscing about these years of my life when I only had these plain baos at my disposal and realized there might be a better way — what if the plain ol’ bread was replaced, instead, by a cookie. Like, an actual cookie — resulting in a kind of cookie-on-cookie Frankenstein.
I put my idea to the test and was *so* happy with the result, as was Ben, who remarked: “I feel like I’m not really supposed to say this but I think I might prefer this to the real thing.” Though the base doughs were the same, I shaped the cookies in 3 different ways and I’m still not sure which I like best. Based on my little Instagram poll it seems like options 2 and 3 are the crowd favorites.
Either way I hope you’ll take a stab at making these for yourself because they are very good, if I do say so myself.
Specialty Ingredients
Bird’s Custard Powder — This powder comes from the UK and is basically instant pudding mix, but is also used in a lot of Hong Kong bakery recipes. It adds a certain nostalgic flavor to the bolo topping, but if you’re unable to find it can be omitted. I reliably get mine on Amazon and Cost Plus World Market.
Dry Milk Powder — This is just dehydrated milk and can be found at most standard grocery stores. I use the low-fat kind, which is most readily available.
Bolo Bao Cookies
Ingredients
For the Topping
- 60 g Unsalted Butter cold
- 60 g Sugar
- 2 Egg Yolks
- 1 Tbsp Custard Powder*
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 120 g all purpose flour gold medal brand
- 1/8 tsp almond extract
For the Cookie Dough
- 225 g butter browned
- 250 g granulated sugar
- 50 g brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 250 g bread flour
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp almond extract
- 1 Tbsp dry milk powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
For the Egg Wash
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp water
- Pinch salt
Instructions
Prepare the Topping
- To a food processor, add the 60 g Sugar, 1 Tbsp Custard Powder*, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp baking powder. Blitz for about a minute, then add 120 g all purpose flour and blitz again.
- Add the 60 g Unsalted Butter and pulse until the butter completely "disappears" into the mixture — it'll have the texture of lightly wet sand. Add 2 Egg Yolks and 1/8 tsp almond extract and continue processing just until the mixture pulls together.
- Dump the loose dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap and firmly but swiftly press the pieces together, kneading lightly if needed, to form a more cohesive dough. Wrap the dough in the plastic and roll into a neat log shape. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.
Make the Cookie Dough
- Add 225 g butter to a medium-sized, light colored pot or pan. Heat on medium until butter melts, then stir, scraping the bottom constantly, with a heatproof spatula until you see brown bits at the bottom of the pan. This browning process can happen quickly and may end up burning if you're not watching carefully! As soon as the butter solids turn light brown, pour the butter into a medium-sized mixing bowl to help stop the cooking.
- Add 250 g granulated sugar, 50 g brown sugar, and 1 tsp kosher salt to the hot butter and carefully stir to combine. Let rest at cool room temperature for about an hour until the mixture starts to congeal. If your kitchen is warm you can do this step in the refrigerator but you'll want to make sure the mixture remain soft and doesn't completely harden.
- Give the cooled mixture a stir to "fluff" it up. Add 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1 Tbsp dry milk powder, and mix to combine well.
- Add 1 egg, 1/4 tsp vanilla extract, and 1/8 tsp almond extract and mix well to combine before adding the 250 g bread flour and gently folding it in. Once flour is moistened, mix well to combine.
Assembly and Baking
- Remove topping from the refrigerator, unwrap, and carefully slice into 12 discs. Set aside.
- Scoop egg-sized balls of dough and roll between your hands to achieve a smooth ball (I use a ~2 Tbsp cookie scoop for this). Place balls 3" apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Taking one disk of topping between your fingers, gently pinch, press, and rotate the disk until it's about 2" in diameter (quite a bit larger than the diameter of the dough balls). Dust your fingers and work surface lightly with flour if you experience any sticking.
- Gently drape the topping circle over each dough ball.
- To make the egg wash, mix 1 egg yolk, 1 tsp water, and a Pinch salt in a small dish.
- Brush the top of each topping layer with egg yolk mixture. Bake for 12 minutes at 350F, then turn on the top broiler of your oven to 450F and broil for 2-3 minutes until the bolo topping starts to brown. Keep an eye on your cookies here and move the pan around as necessary to ensure each cookie receives some color — you may leave the oven door open during this step as well.
- Remove cookies from oven and wait 5 minutes, then transfer each cookie to a cooling rack to finish cooling. I find these are best enjoyed once completely cool, as it gives the bolo topping time to firm up correctly.
SVM
Made these. Family loved them. Recipe made more cookies than noted but not a bad problem to have.
Rachel
Yay! So glad you liked them. I think maybe my cookies might be a bit bigger than yours, but like you said, the more cookies the better :)))
Jessica
SO SCRUMP!!! Saw your instagram reel and had to make these. Didn’t have custard powder so I omitted it. Also didn’t have almond extract so I subbed coconut (not sure if it made a difference). Cookies turned out great, super easy to follow this recipe:)
Rachel
Amazing! So glad it worked for you 🙂
Karisa
I’m so glad you’re sharing this! My dad has not been back to Hong Kong in years and I hope this will satisfy him until then. For the topping portion, can I use a blender instead of a food processor? Thank you!
Karisa
I’m so glad you shared this! My dad has not been back to Hong Kong in years and one of his favorites foods from there is bolo bao with a huge slab of butter, I’m hoping that this will satisfy him until his next trip! For the topping portion, would I be able to use a blender instead of a food processor? Thank you!
Tiffany
So good! Easy to follow recipe and it came out beautifully!! Thanks for this gem of a recipe!
Rachel
Thank you so much for testing the recipe and for the feedback 🙂
Heidi
Made this with gluten free flour and it works almost as good. Flavor and texture are amazing. The powdered milk also made the gluten free cookie way more fluffy and crispy than usual gf cookies! (I did 1/3 oat flour and 2/3 1:1 gf flour using the same measurements as the original) Only thing is, gf flour made the topping so crumbly it wasn’t sliceable or moldable but I just slammed chunks into the cookie and hoped for the best and it still turned out. I’ll try to fix that next time by either adding less flour than the original recipe or adjusting with a teaspoon of extra egg yolk stolen from the egg wash.
Rachel
Great tips! Happy to hear it worked with GF flour.