Wholemeal Sandwich Loaf (汤种 mehod)

It has been so long since I blogged. Too many changes in Drama Mama's life. First I changed job.. Then went to a new company where the laptop is so bulky. Drama Mama is so used to carrying x-series think pad that when she had to carry a T series it is like boulder to bring home. As such, with no laptop at home, I was not able to blog like I used to.. I no personal laptop.. Multi-functional ma - this is what I call work-life integration.. Anyway, long story cut short, no laptop at home means cannot update my blog... Aiya.. Finally got a laptop now.. :) Can start updating my blog... Wah.. Suddenly I got so many recipe to share with you guys.. Many a times, I happily ate without taking photo.. So smart of me hor..

But nonetheless, I still manage to capture some photos that I can share with all of you :) Let me start with something that I have been trying for many many months ~ plain-o-bread!

Don't know what strike me one day but I decided to make bread. I tried some recipe from allrecipes.com and the bread turned out to be stone! Rock hard stone! It was horrendous.

Can you believe it. I made 2 loaves of hard rock. It did not rise as expected. OMG!!

Look how short the bread is.

After that bad experience, I went to search for a method to bake soft bread - those that you can get from Gardenia.. Finally I found this method called Tangzhong (汤种). Basically it is to add in a sponge like starter to your dough. This supposedly made the bread soft and fluffy. Tangzhong is made from cooking 1 part flour with 5 parts water/milk/both till it becomes thick and starchy. I quite like the results, but because I am new with bread making, I am still experimenting with what they call the baker's percentage (wells, that is for another blog altogether on what is baker's percentage.. haha keep you all in suspense.)

Wells here goes the recipe:

For the Tangzhong:

Ingredients (Enough for 1 loaf of bread):

25g of Bread Flour
125ml of water / water-milk mixture / milk

Directions:

Mix the bread flour into the liquid. Stir till there is no clumps
Pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook under medium heat. Stir constantly from preventing the mixture from being burnt.
The tangzhong is ready when you see the mixture thicken and you can draw circles and the circles stay on the saucepan. (i.e. the mixture is not fluid enough to flow back)
Scoop the tangzhong and let it cool till room temperature before you can use to make your bread.

For the Sandwich Loaf: (Adapted from Christine's Whole meal Bread)

(Makes 1 loaf)

Ingredients:

180g Bread flour
170g Wholemeal flour
6g instant yeast
5g salt
40g sugar
110g milk
100g tangzhong (1 serving of the tangzhong made earlier)
1 large egg
40g butter, at room temperature

Directions:

Mix the first 5 ingredients together. Whisk the dry ingredients evenly. Set aside
In another mixing bowl, whisk the milk, tangzhong & egg till combine.
In your stand mixer with dough attachment, combine the dry and wet ingredients together and slowly mix it. (I kept my at level 1-2)
When all the mixture have combine to form a sticky dough, add in the butter and increase the speed of the mixer a level. Let it mixed for about 10 min until the dough is smooth and not sticky. Slightly oil a mixing bowl. Form the dough into a ball shape and place it on the oiled mixing bowl. Add some oil to the surface of your dough to prevent it from drying. Loosely wrap the bowl with cling wrap / wet towel and place it in somewhere warm and draft free. Let the dough proof for 40min or until double it size.
Once the dough has double in size, punch the dough a few times to get rid of excess carbon dioxide trap in the dough. Cut the dough into 3 equal size and roll them into small balls. Let the dough 'rests' for 15min.
Roll each of the balls into rectangular shape, at the shorter side, roll up the dough (like kitchen roll) and place it into the loaf pan. Continue for the other 2 balls. Let it proof for another 35min or until 90% filled on the loaf pan. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 170C.
Bake the dough for 30-35min or until the bottom sounds hollow. You can add melted butter on the baked bread straight out from the oven for a softer crust.

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MANY ROUNDS OF BAKING THIS BREAD BEFORE I DARE TO SHOW YOU GUYS!!! I keep making and forcing my family and friends to eat them.. Did not want to waste them, but in the end I still had to throw like a couple batches cos they are just inedible. hahaha..