Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Word of the Week: Tangzhong


Tangzhong (or a water roux) was created by a certain lady named Yvonne Chen who wrote a Chinese book entitled "65 degrees Tangzhong Bread". It took the baking scene by storm and caused a huge stir in the blogging scene. It became the secret ingredient to make the softest, fluffiest bread without the use of any artificial enhancers.

Essentially, it's one part water to 5 parts bread flour, cooked in a small pot till it reaches 65 degrees Celsius. It is then taken off the heat, left to cool and chill overnight. The science of it is at this temperature, the gluten in the flour and water mixture absorbs moisture and becomes leavened. When incorporated into other ingredients to make bread, it acts as a natural leavening agent, heightening bread and the result is soft air-fluffy bread.


You can do this without a thermometer. At 65C, you can start to see lines as you whisk the mixture.


Cover with a plastic wrap ensuring it makes contact with the TZ before you chill it overnight.

Click here to see the soft shreddable bread I made using the TZ method.

2 comments:

  1. And then it becomes bread or I gotta use a breadmaker to make bread

    Sorry never looked at baking ever until very, very recently I saw the Big Fat Reality and discovered rice, white bread and potatoes are a big fat dietary no-no and am looking seriously at whole-meal grain type breads

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  2. Hi Simon, you will have to add Tangzhong to your bread recipe to make bread. This is only a dough starter. And you're right, bread is carbo and we all can do with less carbo in our diet. Whole wheat would be great.

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