Charcoal Buns with Mochi & Black sugar

After the hectic week of birthday cake baking, life is back to normal for me again. :P I am glad that I get a little more free time now and able to bake something a little more interesting. :)) In case you all are wondering what am I referring to here, it's just something that has been on my to bake list for awhile now. It's baking charcoal bread again. I remembered the time I made my first charcoal loaf, it kind of created a "stir". Some readers were quite amazed with the addition of edible charcoal in breads and were eager to try it out on their own. It was uncommon then (more then a year ago), but I believe it's not so anymore. Now I see so many charcoal products selling in bakery stores and bloggers posting charcoal bakes. So this week, I decided to bake something original, something a friend told me to copyright it, lol! It's Charcoal Buns with Mochi and Black sugar.

I know....such a huge contrast from my previous post isn't it, lol! Looking from afar , I bet some people would think it's just a pile of black rocks or charcoal! LOL! I seriously don't know how to beautify it further, like adding toasted sesames on top etc, I just went ahead and leave it as is...plain black.

I have used the similar recipe as the previous Matcha buns with Mochi & red bean paste recipe. So instead of using Matcha powder, I used the same amount of edible charcoal powder this time round. And besides that, I replace the red bean paste with raw black sugar that was given to me from my sister. She recently went to Taiwan for business trip and bought me a couple of interesting baking ingredients to try, very sweet of her. ;) And this black sugar was one of it. Apparently people in Taiwan eat it as it is as a snack....sweet!The taste of the sugar is very deep and rich, close to molasses. And the special thing is it's a unrefined sugar, so it still contains potassium, iron, calcium and other minerals. I made the mochi less sweet and so encasing the black sugar plus the soft charcoal bun was just perfect. :)

Anyway, interested bakers can head over to my Matcha buns with Mochi & Red bean paste recipe for reference. The possibility to different bun flavors and fillings are endless! Hope you guys will give it a try. :)

Have an advance nice weekend ahead guys! Cheerio!