As I've mentioned in my past reviews, I'm not an experienced baker. And so when it comes to following instructions and being extremely detail-oriented, I trust the recipes on King Arthur's site to do the right thing and help me along the way. Pedants rejoice!
And so I have to say I'm "above average happy" with the way these Bolo Bao turned out—not perfectly happy, just "above average".
I've never tried the craquelin or concha technique before despite having seen it in episodes of GBBO or in the pages of "Cook's Illustrated", but when this appeared as the "bake of the week" on King Arthur I thought "Why not?" With a mise en place measured out to exacting degrees (using a digital scale that can even do tenths of grams) and my recently-calibrated oven, I dove in. (Not into the oven, the recipe.)
The topping came together nicely and the log went into the fridge to chill. The custard still didn't get to the right consistency even after four minutes of constant whisking so I did cheat and added a half a tablespoon of Bird's Custard Powder. Into the fridge it went as well and after a relaxing cool down it had the ideal consistency and flavor—and not too eggy.
Tangzhong: piece of cake! Well, no, not cake: more a glob of gelatinized flour, which is exactly what you want. I've done tangzhongs/yudanes so many times now I can do it with one hand tied behind my back—so long as I have a kitchen assistant keeping the pan still while I whisk 😆
The stand mixer with the dough hook took care of the FIFTEEN MINUTE kneading time because at my age fifteen minutes of kneading by hand would've landed me in the hospital.
After that, rising, shaping, rising again, installing the craqs, brushing on the egg yolk, and baking was the easy part. They came out with beautifully craggy toppings that—if you were extremely nearsighted or perhaps high—did look like pineapples.
The difficulty was in filling these bad boys! The crumb structure of these buns was so dense that I could never get a decent hollow in them in order to pipe in the custard. After a frustrating battle with three of the buns I decided to just serve the custard on the side with a spoon, letting family dollop the delicious glop onto their Bolo Bao.
I suppose I was expecting something more like profiteroles or cream puffs with easy-to-fill already-mostly-hollow interiors. However, using King Arthur's higher-protein Bread Flour and 15 full minutes of kneading made for both a STRONG and DENSE crumb. Hollowing out these buns for filling would've required tunnel boring equipment.
Now, I did mention I'm an inexperienced baker, so I probably did something wrong. I just wish I knew what!
Still, they looked neat from the outside and tasted sweetly yeasty and warmly delicious on the inside.