Komugi Manju (Steamed Wheat Buns with Red Bean Paste)
Quick answer
- Total time
- 42 min
- Level
- Medium
- Servings
- 10 servings
- Ingredients
- 6
About this dish
Baking soda puffs the white, tender skin of these Utsunomiya buns, which is why they also go by tansan manju.
Read more
Wheat thrived in Tochigi's double-cropping fields, and households steamed them with the new flour for Obon, weddings, funerals, and other yearly observances. On Kamafuta Tsuitachi, the first day of the seventh lunar month, families offered them so ancestors traveling home from the other world would not go hungry.
Ingredients
Instructions
- 1
Divide the red bean paste into ten exact 30 g portions and roll each into a smooth ball.
Keep covered so the surfaces do not dry while making the dough.
- 2
Combine 250 g cake flour with 10 g baking soda and sift through a fine sieve twice.
Put in a large bowl and make a wide well in the center.
- 3
Dissolve 125 g sugar in 125 g water until almost no grains remain.
Add the sugar water to the well in three additions, mixing with a spatula into dough slightly softer than an earlobe.
- 4
Spread dusting flour generously on a board and transfer the dough.
Coat the surface, roll into a long cylinder, and divide evenly into ten pieces. Do not force unused dusting flour into the dough.
- 5
Press one dough piece into a round with a thicker center and thinner edge.
Set one paste ball on it, draw the edge up, pinch completely closed, and set seam-side down.
- 6
Line a steamer that is already producing abundant steam with parchment.
Space the buns at least 4 cm apart and mist the surfaces very lightly with water.
- 7
Cover and steam over medium-high heat for 10 to 12 minutes.
Turn off the heat, open the lid away from your face, and transfer the buns immediately to a basket to cool quickly without sticky surfaces.
References checked
These references were consulted when this page was prepared or corrected. A source check does not mean the recipe was independently kitchen-tested.
- 일본 농림수산성 うちの郷土料理
『ふる里の和食 宇都宮の伝統料理』（柏村祐司／半田久江） · Checked: 2026-08-11
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