The Fresh Loaf

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Tangzhong in recipes with little water

Janet Yang's picture
Janet Yang

Tangzhong in recipes with little water

Can tangzhong be used in recipes that rely mainly on eggs for liquid?

Janet

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

When it comes down to it, only the tangzhong requires water or milk. Go ahead and use water or milk in the tangzhong and you'll be fine if you wish to use only eggs for the remainder of the liquid. You'll just have to experiment and see how many eggs are required to get the dough to your desired consistency. 

Cheers!

Trevor

Janet Yang's picture
Janet Yang

Suppose less liquid is needed because of the tangzhong. Can I replace some whole eggs with egg yolks, to maintain the eggy flavor, or does the bread need the egg whites for structure?

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

The whites will contribute more lift when the loaf bakes, but whites can also cause a bit of drying in the crumb as well (which shouldn't be a problem with a tangzhong bread). Your best bet is to just play around with the recipe until you find something you like.

But . . .

As I've recently gone down this road, I'll tell you my experience. I made some tangzhong dinner rolls a few weeks ago -- the tangzhong was made with whole milk, and the only other liquid was 4 egg yolks (oh, and some honey). The rolls turned out good, but to my taste they were overly moist and rich. However, I was the only one that thought so -- everyone else just devoured them. If I make those again, I'll use whole eggs instead. Good luck!

Janet Yang's picture
Janet Yang

I read this in 65°C:

The biggest difference between [tāng zhǒng] and other types of bread is that the paste can absorb more water, so the bread is softer and stays fresh longer.

Does this mean that a recipe adapted to use tāng zhǒng can (should?) include more water? 

Janet

P.S. This may not be an accurate translation. I don't read Chinese, so the best I could do was to run the text through Google Translate. Not all of the results made sense!