Whole meal Bread (Tangzhong Version)

Last week, I paid a visit to one of my husband colleague who is of a Chinese origin. While having discussion with her about the food and culture, she introduced me a new Chinese technique in bread making called Tangzhong.

To be honest, I never heard of this term before. She explained me the technique and its advantages over the Normal bread m(B)aking. 

I was quite excited and want to know more about. Thanks to google…………….

Let me explain about Tangzhong…….in this method, a part of the flour (on the bread recipe) is pre-cooked with water and later added to the rest of the ingredients and undergoes fermentation process and then to Oven. 

Its bit lengthy process like the biga, Because, I was told that, the bread stays soft and fluffy even after a few days.  (Yet to test and validate***) 

So, prior to bread making, let’s prepare the Tangzhong and add it to the bread recipe.

Ingredients for Tangzang :  ½ cup of Water    ;   1/8 cup of All purpose flour.

Tangzhong Making procedure :  Mix flour in water well without any lumps and cook over medium-low heat, stir/whisk to prevent burning and sticking.

Once the mixture becomes thicker and thicker, you notice some “lines” appear in the mixture for every stir you do with the spoon. This is the indication the tangzhong is done. 

Remove from heat cover the dough with cling wrap to prevent drying. Let it cool. 

Ingredient for Bread :  1/2 cup  of  Milk     ;      1 Egg   ;  Tangzhong (as made above)    ;    2 tsp of Sugar     ;     5 gms of Salt    ;    1 cup pf  all purpose flour    ;   1 cup  + 4 tbsp of   wheat flour   ;      1 ½ tsp  instant yeast    ;     30 gms of butter (room temp) 

Procedure :  Mix milk, sugar, salt and yeast thoroughly then add egg and beat well. Now add Tangzhong mixture and combine. 

Add all purpose flour & wheat flour (in a small quantity at a time) to the Tangzhong mixture to make dough. Once all are well combined, add butter and start knead the dough till it become a soft & elastic.

Cover the dough with damp cloth and allow it to become double in volume. May take up to 60 – 90 minutes. 

Transfer the dough to a clean floured surface. Deflate and divide into 3 equal portions. Knead into ball shapes and Cover with plastic wrap, let rest for 15 minutes at room temperature.

Roll out each dough ball with a rolling pin into an oval shape and roll it again in a tubular form and once again roll out about 30 cm in length and again roll into a cylinder shape. Similarly do the other portions too.

Now, arrange the rolled-up dough in a greased or non-stick loaf tin and cover with damp cloth for about an hour. 

Keep the loaf tin in a 180°C pre-heated oven and bake it for 30 min and brush it with butter and allow it to cool to slice.

It’s really amazing, the bread was extra soft and spongy. It was worth taking few extra steps to make a magic ingredient Tangzhong.  The loaf finished (even before cooling!) by my son and husband within 10 min. hence, I couldn’t check the bread softness after a day or two***.

Original recipe source from en.christinesrecipes.com