I was talking with someone I make bread for a lot, and they said they like “soft bread”. Well, what can I do to make a given bit of bread soft? Reverse creaming? Tang zhong? Why not both.
Normally, we are told, if you make bread at 60%, you want to make it 75% for tang zhong. I had to write down all the components first, because I wanted to make sure I had enough water (and I reduced the tang zhong to make sure I could add some almond milk, which was left over from the parkin).
- Sponge
- 100g flour
- 100g water
- some yeast
- Tang Zhong
- 27g flour
- 113g water
- Reverse creaming
- 327g flour
- 10g salt
- 56g butter (half stick)
- Liquid
- 162g almond milk
The night before, mix the sponge ingredients together in your mixing bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
The day of, heat the tang zhong ingredients together until they stick together. The slurry will flow evenly over the pan and at some point, your stirring will leave trails, and once you can pile it, it’s ready.
While the tang zhong cools, put the flour, salt and butter in a food processor and blitz. You can go until there are still chunks of butter (like you were making a pie crust), or until it’s completely incorporated (how I always do it). Put the reverse cream ingredients on the sponge, then add the tang zhong and pour the almond milk on. Run the mixer with a bread hook until the dough is fully kneaded.
Allow to rise, flatten it in a tablet form, roll it up and place in a loaf pan and allow to rise again. Bake for 42 minutes at 350.
Very Soft!
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