Title: About Tangzhong
Categories: Breads, Japanese, Info
Yield: 4 Servings
Tangzhong
An intriguing technique for softer yeast bread and rolls
How can you elevate your favorite dinner rolls to new levels of
pillow-y softness in one simple step? Ditto your old-fashioned
sandwich bread, tender cinnamon rolls, and gooey sticky buns. The
answer: tangzhong, the Asian yeast bread technique that's gradually
making its way into American kitchens.
Let's not lose sight of a whole world of classic soft yeast breads:
the sliced white bread of our youthful sandwiches, the Sunday
morning platter of tender sticky buns.
Tangzhong: the quick and easy path to softer, more tender dinner
rolls, sandwich loaves, and cinnamon buns.
This Japanese technique cooks a small percentage of the flour and
liquid (water or milk) in a yeast recipe very briefly before
combining the resulting thick slurry with the remaining ingredients.
How does this technique affect yeast dough? It pre-gelatinizes the
starches in the flour, meaning they can absorb more water. In fact,
flour will absorb twice as much hot water or milk as it does the
cool/lukewarm water or milk you'd usually use in yeast dough.
Not only does the starch in the flour absorb more liquid; since
heating the starch with water creates structure, it's able to hold
onto that extra liquid throughout the kneading, baking, and cooling
processes. Which in turn means:
Since there's less free (unabsorbed) water in the dough, it's less
sticky and easier to knead;
The bread or rolls may rise higher, due to more water creating more
internal steam (which makes bread rise in the oven along with the
carbon dioxide given off by the yeast);
Having retained more water during baking, bread and rolls will be
moister, and will stay soft and fresh longer.
tangzhong in a nutshell: soft rolls (or bread) that stay soft for an
extended period.
While nothing beats a freshly baked, oven-warm roll, tangzhong
delivers results that are a very close second without the pressure
of having to bake right before serving.
Measure out the total amount of flour and milk used in the recipe.
Now take 3 tablespoons of the measured flour and 1/2 cup of the
measured milk and put them in a saucepan set over medium-high heat.
Cook the mixture, whisking constantly; it quickly starts to thicken.
Within a minute or so the mixture becomes a thick slurry.
Transfer the cooked mixture to a bowl, let it cool to lukewarm, then
combine it with the remaining flour, milk, and other dough
ingredients.
Proceed with the recipe as directed: kneading the dough; letting it
rise; shaping the buns; letting them rise, and baking. Tangzhong
yields soft, moist, tender buns.
