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# Bōluó Bāo (菠萝包)
- URL: https://onesandwich.com/boluo-bao/
- Published: 2026-05-18T04:29:32.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-26T10:51:15.000Z
- Description: Pineapple bun; sweet bun with crispy sugary top (no actual pineapple). Often split and filled with butter.
- Author: Andrew Lekashman
- Tags: China, Split Roll Sandwiches, Pineapple Bun, #auto-imported

**🇨🇳 China** · Family: [Pineapple Bun](https://onesandwich.com/tag/pineapple-bun/) · Region: Hong Kong · Heat: Baked · Bread: boluo-bao

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Ingredients

pineapple bun · butter

*Bōluó Bāo (菠萝包)* is the pineapple bun, a soft sweet roll capped with a crackly sugar-cookie crust whose crazed golden pattern resembles a pineapple skin, though there is no pineapple in it at all. The angle is a two-dough contrast baked into one object. A light, slightly sweet leavened bun carries a separate sugary paste topping that crisps and fractures in the oven, so the whole appeal turns on the meeting of a tender crumb below and a thin shattering shell on top. The most common sandwich form splits the bun and slides in a cold slab of butter, the *bōluó yáu*, where the heat of a fresh bun softens the butter into the crumb.

The build is two preparations finished together. The base is a milk-enriched yeast dough, proofed until light and shaped into rounds. The crust is a stiff paste of sugar, fat, flour, and egg, worked smooth and chilled, then pressed or draped in a thin sheet over each proofed bun before baking; as the bun rises and the oven heat hits the sugar, the topping spreads, dries, and cracks into the characteristic web. Good execution shows a bun that is soft and faintly sweet with an even crumb, and a topping that is crisp and sandy, audibly crackly, evenly browned, and bonded to the dome rather than sliding off. The failure modes are specific: too little proof and the bun bakes up dense and tight under a topping that never gets to crack properly; a topping mixed too soft or laid too thick runs down the sides into a chewy puddle instead of setting into a shell; over-baked, the crust scorches bitter and the crumb dries out. For the buttered version, the bun has to be warm and the butter cold and thick, so it half-melts rather than either staying a hard cold block or vanishing entirely.

It shifts mostly by what is added at the split and by tweaks to the topping. Beyond the cold-butter classic, the bun is filled with custard, red bean, shredded coconut, or a savory shredded pork, and some bakeries scent the crust with a little extra vanilla or work in a custard core. The cocktail bun and other sweet enriched rolls of the same cha chaan teng tradition share the soft-dough logic but carry their own fillings and shapes, and those are separate preparations rather than crowded in here. What keeps *bōluó bāo* itself is the pairing that gives it its name: a soft leavened bun under a thin, crazed, sugary crust, with no pineapple anywhere in sight.

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## More from this family

Other [Pineapple Bun](https://onesandwich.com/tag/pineapple-bun/) sandwiches in China:

- [Bōluó Yóu (菠萝油)](https://onesandwich.com/boluo-you/)
- [Nǎiyóu Bōluó Bāo (奶油菠萝包)](https://onesandwich.com/naiyou-boluo-bao/)