Tangzhong bread

Equipment:

1) Oven
2) Thermometer
3) Digital weighing scale

Ingredients:

20 gm bread flour
100 ml water
80 ml milk (116 - 118 fahrenheit) + 1 teaspoon sugar
1 egg
35 gm sugar
5 gm milk powder
230 gm bread flour (you must use bread flour, I recommend Waitrose Canadian & very strong white bread flour)
4 gm active dry yeast (1.5 teaspoons)
20 gm butter, softened at room temperature

Instructions:

1) Mix 20 gm bread flour and 100 ml water in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat. Keep stirring until the mixture becomes like glue. This is called tangzhong. Cover and let the tangzhong cool to room temperature. This is what the tangzhong looks like.

2) Warm 80 ml milk to about 116 - 118 Fahrenheit. Stir in one teaspoon of sugar. Add 1.5 teaspoons of active dry yeast. Let the mixture stand for about 5 minutes. The mixture should foam up. This is called proofing yeast. If it does not foam up, then you need to try another batch of yeast.

3) Mix the tangzhong from step 1, the milk mixture from step 2 to all the rest of the ingredients except butter. Stir well using a large spoon.

4) Slowly knead in the butter into the dough as shown in the video below. The dough will be very sticky. If it becomes too sticky to knead you can just stretch and fold as shown in the later part of the video. Remember to keep turning the dough.

5) Keep kneading for about 15 minutes. The dough should become somewhat smooth as shown in the picture below.

6) Cover the bowl with cling wrap and place it into the oven (not turned on). If your kitchen is cold you can add a cup of hot water and place it next to the bowl (not touching) as shown below. 

7) Wait for 45 minutes to 1 hour. The dough should rise to about double in size. Take out the dough and shape it into a log as shown in the video below. The dough will still be sticky so you need to put flour on the surface you are working on.

8) After you shape the dough and placed it in a loaf pan, cover the dough and place it back into the oven (not turned on). Wait for about 30 minutes for it to rise again.

9) Take the dough out of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit (180 Celsius). Put the dough into the oven and  bake for 40 minutes.

10) Your bread should look like this.



The bread is very soft. I recommend using a long serrated bread knife to slice after the bread completely cools down. It should look like this.




You can also divide the dough into 6 round balls and bake on a large pan. Then you can make hamburgers like this.