September 18, 2020 - 5:40am
Formulas for basic white bread using Tangzhong? (Only 4 ingredients)
I would like to learn baking bread with Tangzhong.
I have seen great pics, videos and posts here about Hokkaido Milk bread. Formulas, apart from milk often include sugar, egg and butter.
My method of learning is minimalistic. One step at the time. I want to learn the individual effect of each process and ingredient. And for me milk, egg, sugar, butter and Tangzhong are too many new steps at the same time.
Is there someone who has a simple formula for a white loaf using Tangzhong and where the Tangzhong actually makes a significant difference, hopefully in terms of fluffiness and moisture?
So these are my 4 "allowed" ingredients:
Flour
Water
Salt
Yeast
Anyone?
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Morus, a Tangzhong is made with 1 part flour to 5 parts liquid. a good starting place would be 6 percent pre-fermented flour (PPF).
If you need more help, let us know.
I can make a decent airy loaf with bread flour with a hydration of 66%.
What hydration (total of course) should I aim for when I use Tangzhong?
King Arthur has an article on how to convert an existing recipe to a tangzong one. https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2018/07/23/how-to-convert-a-bread-recipe-to-tangzhong
If it is incorrect, please let me know, I want to try it too, outside of the milk bread recipes.
Thanks for link
it says aim is 75% percent hydration. But its milk based and there is a significant amount of sugar and butter in the formula. I'm not sure how that translates to my desire: to only use water, flour, salt and yeast.
I think I will try a hydration between 70 and 75%
They do list a recipe but talk about how to convert your existing one. It says to cook a small portion of your flour in a 1:1 ratio, like you would for gravy, a roax. Then add it to the bread. I think they say to use 10% of the flour? I like the article because they do a comparison of rise to show the effects. The only thing they change about the recipe is the tangzong part. Milk makes bread more tender and moist, but you don't have to use it. Take a recipe you've already made and cook a small amount of the flour and the water together.
I haven’t had the chance to make this yet, but Maurizio’s formulas are all spot on and I have made many of them. This is the link to his formula and always well written instructions for his Tangzhong Sourdough loaf
I've only tried it with milk though. But plan to try with soy milk or water next.
Haven't tried tangzhong method yet, but a good place to start, especially with your desired minimalist list of ingredients, might be here: https://foodgeek.dk/en/high-hydration-sourdough-bread-recipe/
Thanks. Yes, Sune doesn't use milk etc in that formula.
He is using high hydration of 85%.
I think 75% overall hydration will be a good start for me,
In your link for the 85% hydration he uses 7% of the flour in the Tangzhong.
But then he uses 14% of the flour in the Tangzhong here when he experiments with even higher hydration : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eT_j0_hgiw
So a bigger part of tangzhong increases the breads possibilty to hold water it seems...
As first attempt in my 75% loaf I think I will try 10% of the flour in the Tangzhong.
So my basic recipe:
360 g bread flour
Becomes
Tangzhong: 36 g bread flour, 180 g water
But what if all my water is in the Tangzhong but maintaining overall hydration of 75% ? Like this
Tangzhong: 54 g bread flour, 290 g water (15% of the flour is now in the Tangzhong)
Would that make the loaf dry? Is it even possible to mix that dough!?
I guess I have to experiment.
...is 5% of the flour and 5x its weight from the water. So nothing about the overall recipe changes. For example...
5% of 500g flour = 25g and 5x its weight in water is 125g. Both are taken from the total flour and water. So you rearrange the recipe like so...
Tangzhong:
Dough:
of the total flour weight. My tip.... put the 25g flour with the 125g water in a microwave bowl and stir. Weigh bowl and zap in 30 second intervals stirring between zaps, to cook the roux. Put back on the scale and return any evaporated water lost in the cooking process. Let the 150g roux cool down before stirring into liquids.
Thanks for the tip of replacing the water lost when cooking the tangzhong. I've been away from TFL for a while. Nice to be back and hope you're keeping well.
Welcome back, Abe. I noticed you're alive and kicking! :). Hope you and yours are also keeping well.
Gosh I missed TFL. Nice to carry on where I left off. It's like I never left. Have been looking in from time to time but really busy and became a lurker. Some fantastic community bakes with the latest one going on for as long as a baguette.
Great to have you and your helpful knowledge back Abe, you’ve been missed by many.
Benny
I'm back to dip into the pool of knowledge that everyone here has to offer. You've been knocking out some fantastic baguettes which I have yet to try.
Kind of you to say Abe. Looking forward to seeing your bakes too.
Sorry to the OP for taking your thread off topic.
And I used 10% of the flour in the Tangzhong and overall 75% hydration. Like this;
The effect of the Tangzhong was remarkable. I have never made such a soft and moist loaf.
It was also rather gummy-like, springy... This is not my favorite bread but the aim was to learn the technique (in the long run vollkorn/wholemeal type of breads are my favorite) with Tangzhong
Thanks all for suggestions, most of you opted for 5% of the flour in the Tangzhong. How would you describe the effect of increasing this percentage? And why would you say 5% is optimal? I did now 10% and I'm curious to try even higher.
(Thanks Mini for great tip with weighing before, after and adding water - I lost lots of water since i made the Tangzhong slowly on the stove - in my Minimalistic approach I do not posses a Microwave :-))
when close to 10%
try again at 5% and compare.
Heating on the stove....don't have to wait until it boils, the milky water will thicken and be more translucent and coat the stirring spoon. Boiling is where water is lost.
Yes I should probably try 5% in order to improve the bread quality.
However, I was curious about the effect of the Tangzhong so I went in the other direction and used 20% of the flour and ALL of the water in the Tangzhong. Like this:
By doubling the amount of flour in the Tangzhong I was expecting to make a chew toy for a Rottweiler but the result was actually very similar to the previous bread. Gumminess, softness and moisture felt very similar. Hm?? Rather surprising...
(This bread is smaller than the previous one I made, has somewhat higher hydration 80% and tangzhong is in ratio 1:4. Because of the loaf being smaller I scaled down the amount of yeast and salt as well as the time in the oven.)
But I once used orange marmalade in a rye that called for orange zest and it produced a wonderful taste and crumb. If you're making a plain bread I don't know how you'd use marmalade or jam however there is a fantastic rye bread recipe over on breadtopia which is bursting with flavour. Just an idea of another way to get a "tangzhong effect".
Interesting.
Was it a 100% rye bread? Would you say the marmalade increased airiness in the rye bread?
in the marmelade. Rye responds well to acid ingredients.
Whenever I peel a great aromatic orange, I skin it with a peeler and dry, freeze or chill the zest. It's grest stuff to have around.
Yeast water makes for a soft crumb too. Acid drops in the fruit juice as it ferments. Saturday the wine was delivered and with it, the wincer gave me 2 ltr of fresh fermenting grape juice about 3 days old. He said if it was too sweet, wait a few days. Covered with foil to let gasses out, it became a target of my next bake. I stirred some yesterday with flour and it trippled in as many hours. I thickened it up and it trippled again. Tucked it into the fridge for playing this afternoon. Gosh it smells great!
It turned out to be the best rye i've ever made. Delicious and perfect texture. Here is the recipe and the only thing I changed was to add in some orange marmalade instead of zest and then add enough water till it felt right as I didn't know how it would affect the hydration.
guess this will be a busy fun week!
If anyone can do it justice you can judging by the rye breads i've seen you post on here on TFL.