Pineapple bun
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| Alternative names | Bo lo baau |
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| Type | Sweet bun |
| Place of origin | Hong Kong |
| Main ingredients | Sugar, eggs, flour, and lard |
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| Pineapple bun | |||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | |||||||||||||||
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| Simplified Chinese | |||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | pineapple bun | ||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | bōluóbāo |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Jyutping | bo1 lo4 baau1 |
| Southern Min | |
| Hokkien POJ | ông-lâi-pau (王梨包) |
A pineapple bun is a kind of sweet bun predominantly popular in Hong Kong and Canada, though they are also common in Chinatowns worldwide. It is known in Cantonese as bo lo baau, in which bo lo means "pineapple", and baau refers to a kind of bun-like item in Chinese cuisine.
In June 2014, the Hong Kong Government listed the pineapple bun as a part of Hong Kong's intangible cultural heritage. Tai Tung Bakery in Yuen Long, which had been making pineapple buns for more than 70 years, was a key proponent of including the technique for making the buns on the list of 480 items of living heritage.
In September 2014, a police raid found that several suppliers (including Starbucks, 7-Eleven and Cafe Express) had been selling pineapple buns made with tainted oil, known as "gutter oil", from an unlicensed factory in Taiwan. This oil was recycled from kitchen waste, as well as being a by-product of leather processing and offal from slaughterhouses.
The top of the pineapple bun (the part which is made to resemble a pineapple) is made of a dough similar to that used to make sugar cookies, which consists of sugar, eggs, flour, and lard. It is crunchy and is quite sweet compared to the bread underneath. The bread dough underneath is the same used in Chinese style Western breads, which is a softer and sweeter dough compared to Western breads. It is popular with breakfast or afternoon tea.
Although it is known as "pineapple bun", the traditional version contains no pineapple. The name originated from the fact that its sugary top crust is cooked to a golden-brown color, and because its checkered top resembles the of a pineapple.
Many Hong Kong restaurants, such as cha chaan tengs and dai pai dongs, offer an item called a buttered pineapple bun, which is a pineapple bun with a piece of butter stuffed inside. They are known in Cantonese as bo lo yau (菠蘿油), in which bo lo means "pineapple", and yau (oil) refers to butter. Variants of this include using custard in place of butter.
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Wikipedia