Steamed & Boiled Breads
Breads cooked by steam or boiling rather than dry oven heat
- Cook method
- Steam / boil-bake
- Max temp
- 100°C (steam)
- Cook time
- 12 min – 4 hours
- Crumb
- Soft, white, dense
Steamed Sweet Dumplings Recipes
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Create a recipeAbout Steamed & Boiled Breads
Steamed and boiled breads use water, as liquid or vapor, as their primary cooking medium, either alongside or instead of oven heat. Chinese mantou and bao (steamed buns), Japanese nikuman, Filipino siopao, and Vietnamese bánh bao are pure steamed. They never touch a dry oven, and they produce the characteristic snow-white, soft, pillowy crumb. New York-style bagels and German Bavarian pretzels (Brezeln) are boiled briefly before baking. The boil sets the crust, creates the chewy interior, and (for bagels) gelatinizes the surface starch into the signature shiny exterior. Boston brown bread is steamed in a sealed can for hours. Sticky-rice breads from Southeast Asia are cooked entirely by steaming.
Characteristics
Steaming temperatures top out at 100°C, which is why steamed breads stay pale. No Maillard browning happens below about 140°C. The benefit is moisture retention. Steamed crumbs hold 60 to 70% water through cooking, producing exceptionally soft, tender textures impossible to achieve in dry heat. Steam times run 12 to 15 minutes for small bao, 25 to 35 minutes for large mantou, 2 to 4 hours for Boston brown bread. Boiled-then-baked breads like bagels and pretzels get a 30 to 90 second boil bath. Bagels go into plain or barley-malt-sweetened water (pH 7 to 8). Pretzels go into a lye solution (3 to 4% NaOH) or a weaker baking-soda solution (4% NaHCO₃) for the characteristic dark, glossy crust. Bagels then bake at 230°C for 12 to 18 minutes.
Tips for getting it right
For steamed buns, use a low-protein flour (cake or pastry flour, around 9% protein) or a "Hong Kong" bao flour if you can find it. The white crumb and soft texture depend on minimal gluten development. Line the steamer with parchment squares to prevent sticking, and leave room between buns since they expand 50%+ during steaming. Don't lift the steamer lid during cooking. Temperature drops collapse the puff. For bagels, a long cold retard of 12 to 24 hours in the fridge before boiling is what produces the proper bagel chew. Same-day bagels are fine but flatter. Lye is the traditional pretzel bath ingredient and produces a genuinely superior crust, but it's caustic and requires gloves and eye protection. A baking-soda bath at 4% is safer and 90% as good. Bake pretzels immediately after the bath. They shouldn't sit wet.