The cocktail bun is a Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

-style bread with a sweet filling of shredded coconut

Coconut

The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...

. 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 a bartender

Bartender

A bartender is a person who serves beverages behind a counter in a bar, pub, tavern, or similar establishment. A bartender, in short, "tends the bar". The term barkeeper may carry a connotation of being the bar's owner...

'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 with granulated sugar. Newer versions saw the addition of shredded coconut and butter or margarine to the recipe, 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.

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. An final egg wash to the exterior lends a shiny, golden-brown colour 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

Sesame

Sesame is a flowering plant in the genus Sesamum. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods....

seeds.