"Funny" Cat Tuna Bread Buns

Funny cat tuna bread buns? You might ask... what is so funny about these cats or buns? They look like cat of course but why funny? "Are these Hello Kitty?" some of my colleagues asked. My answer is no. These are just "funny cats"...

It can be a long story for me explaining the origin and name of these bread buns but I shall cut my story as short as possible... Briefly, my son have a couple of these freebies Little Pet Shop toys from Singapore Airline and he likes to call them funny cats. As I was browsing through a Chinese bread baking book, The Second book of Baking for Beginner by Carol (a gift from Lena, Frozen wings), my son was excited seeing one of the recipes in this book and insisted that we should bake it because the bread buns look like his funny cats... so here we are baking these funny cat tuna bread buns.

As much as I am trying to read and translate Chinese language, I'm still lost in translation (like what I did in this post) - LOL! Good that this book has lots of good picture to illustrate many bread making processes and glad that I'm adapting well most of its fantastic recipes into my routine baking. Although both mother and son seem to be hopeless with our Chinese language, we managed to bake these nice and fluffy buns using a brilliant recipe from a Chinese baking book. Ironically "funny", isn't it? - LOL!

Our funny cat tuna bread buns

See how we tortured our boiled potato... LOL!

Making the tuna filling

Shaping and decorating the bread - the chocolate dough for decoration is not sweet at all.

freshly baked from our oven...

"funny" cat bread bun vs "funny" cat - Are we "funny"? - LOL!

Ear has been chomped! Not so "funny" anymore...

See how fluffy is our funny cat's ear...

Thumb up for "Funny" cat and its inspired bread buns

Here's recipe adapted mostly from the book, The Second book of Baking for Beginner by Carol, original in Chinese language, now briefly translated to English.

Makes 6
 
The tuna filling
1 can tuna (95g)
1 potato, boiled, mashed (or tortured - LOL!) with 15g milk powder
3 tbsp corn kernel
a pinch of freshly ground black pepper
a pinch of salt
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
(the original recipe didn't have this but my son had requested for it)
 
Mix all and divide into 6 equal portions  

The bread dough
270g bread flour
30g all purpose flour (I used Italian OO flour)
1/2 tsp yeast
1 egg
20g sugar
1/8 tsp salt
20g olive oil
150ml water

The chocolate dough
100g bread flour
1/4 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
60ml water
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Egg wash
1 egg
1-2 tbsp milk

Instead of kneading by hand as illustrated in the book, I've placed all my ingredients into my bread-maker and use "dough" setting to knead and prove the bread and chocolate dough for 1 hr.

Divide dough into 6 large portions which is about 60g each and 12 small portions which is about 15g each. Shape them into round shape and cover them with moist cloth and allow them to rest for 10 min. the large portions makes the face of the cat.

Flatten each large dough into a flat oval shape. Place each portion of tuna filling in the center of the dough and pinch the edges together to enclose it.

Roll and shape two of the small doughs into teardrop shapes. Arrange two small doughs into lightly oiled baking tray with their pointed sides pointing upwards and place the large dough with its seam side down onto 30% of the two small doughs to form a cat face. Repeat to form the rest of the cat faces.

Roll chocolate dough into skinny ropes. Cut and place them onto each face and decorate them accordingly.

Prove the bread for another 50-60 min or until the cat faces grow puffy.

Preheat oven to 180°C or 160°C fan forced. Brush the bread with egg wash and bake them at 180°C or 160°C fan forced for 18min.

Remove the bread buns from baking tray and allow them to cool completely on a wire rack.

Happy Baking
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