Lucy’s Half and Half TangZhong Hokkaido Bread
We have sausages and hamburger burning a hole in our freezer but we needed buns for both. This recipe makes the best buns especially if you make it like Lucy does.
She starts with Floyd’s recipe that you can find by searching Hokkaido Milk Bread on The Fresh Loaf. Her changes are few but important. First, she cuts the recipe in half because we don’t need buns for an army.
Second where ever you see water or milk in the recipe we substituted Half and Half. The 2 T of butter was increased to 3 T. we had to put in quite a bit more AP flour, 25% more (100 g), because the dough was just way, way too liquid. Floyd said his was too dry using the original water and milk.
This was the guy that drew this picture 40 years ago in Drawing 2 class as a 2nd semester freshman
We changed the process. We made a 100% hydration poolish with H&H, 75 g of AP flour and pinch of instant yeast and let it percolate on the 85 F degree counter for 4 hours. We also held back the butter, egg and sugar until the rest of the ingredients were mixed for 10 minutes on KA 4 using the dough hook.
We want the gluten to be at least partially developed and the flour hydrated well before adding fats and sugars to an enriched dough. Once the egg, sugar and butter went in we beat the heck out of for another 5 minutes and noticed it was way too wet.
We added the extra flour and continued beating it for another 10 minutes – 25 minutes total before it pulled a nice windowpane. Highly enriched breads are the only ones I ever make sure can pull a windowpane.
Tall, Taller, Tallest bread
ever!The final changes were that we divided the dough by eye into 3 parts for final proofing in my favorite pan - the tall Oriental Pullman. Last time we proofed it lid on Pan De Mie style so this time we proofed it lid off to see how much it really would rise and spring. We did brush it with H&H before going in and coming out of the oven.
Jalapeno double thick double apple wood smoked bacon. 1 year aged hard Swiss cheese, caramelized onions, crimini and shiitake mushrooms, lettuce and tomato hamburger on an onion bun.
When it had cooled we noticed when we took it out of the pan that the part touching the pan was damp. As luck would have it the oven was still 200 F because of the 2 stones so we out the loaf back in on the rack between the stones to dry it off. It worked great
The last change was that we baked the bread for nearly 1 hour at 350 F with steam for the first 30 minutes. It took longer to bake this bread to 196 F – the perfect temperature for a bread like this one. It rose sprang and browned beautifully but one has to ask…… what happened to the buns you needed?
This bread is shredably soft, moist sweet and delicious. It toasts perfectly. Yummmmm....
I went to the grocery store today and low and behold they had bakery 8 count, Hot Dog and Onion Hamburger buns on sale for 99 cents each – day old. Lucy can barely make them for that! We had hamburgers tonight on onion buns and we have some great sandwich bread that is half Chinese, half Japanese with a little French in there somewhere.
Can’t wait to see the inside.
Comments
You were, maybe still are, quite the cutie!
And thank you for answering that question about the hot dog buns. I was thinking that those sausages of yours must have the most odd shape to fit the bread that came out of the Pullman.
It looks gorgeous, the crumb will be equally as nice.
By the way, I think that Lucy definitely has that touch of dementia. Baking on a Monday again?
I could have sworn it was Tuesday yesterday? No matter. My wife got on me about buying buns when I could have made them....she used to hate my bread and now she can't get enough of it. Talk about dementia...It seems to be contagious. I'm making French toast with this sometime this morning. I'm guessing the crumb will be fluffy and moist with a close every even crumb since we neat the heck out of it let it double and the double again before the nice oven spring to boot. This is one bread that goes into the freezer right after breakfast - yeast breads spoil fast even though this one might make it 3 days.
Gad you like the bread and happy baking Danni
Of course it was Tuesday yesterday! I cannot track of what day it is now that I am well into retirement. Although I should have known better, Tuesday is one of my pottery days! Blame it on just waking up! Yeah, blame it on that! Isn’t the first sign of dementia denial? ?
and that is the best part of having Lucy around - it is her fault which is true most of the time anyway:-)
One thing that I missed due to my whole grain baking style is that explosive open spring hardly achievable with 100% whole grain. Luckily I prefer a denser and chewier bread over airy bread anyway.
The crust is browned very nicely too! However, for soft bread like this, I actually prefer preheating the oven at a high temperature then immediately lower it to a very low temperature (about 300°F) for a soft crust with minimal browning.
It's really rare for you to use instant yeast! I have to admit I prefer it to sourdough for homemade naan and tang zhong style sweet buns. It is much more convenient and do not impart a sour flavour that is less desirable for these kind of bread.
Can't wait to see the crumb tomorrow!
brushed on it when it came out of the oven, After it was wrapped in plastic overnight it was really soft. I have made this recipe using sourdough and it comes out great too. This bread is much like panettone and challah in many ways. Very sweet, high rising and very brown on top. The bread is so sweet that the the sour dough cuts it just enough. I actually prefer it SD and if you make it with yeast then you can cut the sugar in half to get a similar sweetness to the SD vresion.
The crumb came out perfect. Soft, shreddable and moist and why this recipe makes the best buns ever! Whole grain SD breads are still my favorite too!
Happy baking Elslie
That's my problem! I'm not comfortable with adding too much sugar into my bread partly because of health reason. But the main issue is that it just feel not right to me to add too much sugar as I'm more used to baking sourdough bread (which obviously taste great without any added sugar). Next time I may consider adding more sugar to SD bread to see if it could produce bread that is both sweet and complex in flavour. I know it really depends on different factors, but what do you think would be the minimum sugar % so that the sourness would not overpower the sweetness?
Speaking of flavour, I just sprouted some hard white wheat berries yesterday. I'm so excited to try adding them to my bread after drying and milling them! Will definitely report back after the bake!
By the way, this is the kind of white bread I'm referring to:
source: http://aaa.dodocook.com/recipe/32189
milk enriched with about 5% each sugar and butter
in half would be just perfect. My wife commented this morning that this bread had too much sugar in it and was too sweet. She said she doesn't like sugar in her bread.
You could also try adding some white diastatic malt and removing all the sugar. They say that a tablespoon of white malt is like adding 1/4 C of sugar to any SD bread. I think it is more like 1/8th of a C from experience.
Could I use dark malt instead if I don't mind the darker colour? Since I don't have white malt on hand.
down of starches into sugars. The idea is that the wee beasties cannot eat all of that sugar so the bead takes on a bit of sweetness without adding sugar. Red malt or non diastatic malt has been heated up to a temperature that denatures the amylase enzymes that act as these starch breaking catalysts so you will not get any extra sugar in the mix.
Another way is to do a longer autolyse that allows the amylase enzymes in the flour to help break more starch into sugar. A higher autolyse temperature will increase the speed as well since amylase works twice as fast for every 18 F increase in temperature.
And I'm not that much of a white bread fan anymore.
If the pain de mie keeps winding up in the loaf pan with none left over for buns, just make up some Portugese Sweet Bread. That stuff makes great buns for burgers and hotdogs.
Paul
but I think we will give it a go the next time we make buns. I'm with you on on not making much white bread. It isn't good for me or my A1C:_)
Happy baking Paul
What a good idea for sausages. Well done Lucy! And do you still draw?
and tracing paper on my desk at all times. I really like to paint but haven't done much of that since 2000. I did a Perspective on the Millennium in 1999 where I took tempera paints with me while I was on the road every week and an 8x12 sketch pad. I allotted 1 hour on one day to come yup with an idea and sketch it and then 2 hours the next day to paint it in eggshell tempera. What ever was happening that week that seemed interesting was the subject. One week it was a volcano going off in Mexico, another week it was a paining of my daughter flying a kite (she was 8 then). Another week I painted a Native American themed abstract, a disturbed woman, paint brushes, the world ending (the fake Y2K Hoax) etc.... 52 in all.
People think that the year 2000 was the millennium but of course those in the know know it was 1999 and everyone was year late to the party. I keep them all in a book after my wife took them down from the wall. I would hang them the week after I got home and then in the book they went never to be seen again. On the back of each one I wrote what was going through my mind at the time. I though people in 2,999 would want to know what others were doing and thinking about during the last one. I just checked and they are still there - Whew....so many of my drawings and paintings are lost forever. Here is me staring at a totem pole and wondering what it all meant in my mind.
DSCN1056.JPG
I really admire people who keep a diary or track of what they were doing at different times in their life. I tend to live for the moment and forget to take pictures and I certainly never write it down. Pictures and the written word are so important to retain memories.
to know if I wanted to go to college, my twin too, we said sure and he said good, I think so too.....and went on to say, since I am not paying for it you better get a job. He said I expect you come visit your mother often and spend some good time with her but, when you graduate from High School, you can't live here anymore either. He wasn't kidding. It was like a the best thing ever. My mom was crying, as she always did about her kids good or bad, but she gave us each a blank journal and said - just in case you don't come back to visit as much as I would like, write down how your life goes and what you are thinking about so I can catch up with you - eventually. So I did and these books are the basis of so many tall tales and other lies. I mean she was going to read them and that sort of put a damper on what was really going on. It was like keeping two sets of books for a cash business One for yourself and one for the IRS.
I'm just sittin' here, in this old pickup truck, just wonderin' what I'm going to do about you. You told me you were leaving and you said you'd found somebody new. What was I supposed to do, when you broke my life in two? Tell me babe, what was I supposed to do? A poem and later a 3 verse song of sorrow - September, 1978. When I sang it to my mom not long after, she knew exactly what it was all about. She was always right about everything.
?????
It took me many years to recover but writing and singing songs made life bearable again - even better than it was. Music can be a tonic for all things bad in life. You can eventually move past the bad and on to the rest of your life. I always sang songs to my daughter when I gave her a bath on Saturday and Sunday nights. I never thought she would remember it but she asks me to sing those same songs to her every now and again. She never knew I wrote most of them. Many were country or 12 bar blues just like me. Music is powerful in so many ways.
Likey lots. Thank you.
Great looking bread.. have bookmarked this and will have to give it a try! You make it all look second nature and way too easy.. thanks for all the great posts.. !
I will cut the sugar in half next time due to my diabetes and my wife not liking the sweetness. Making bread look easy is the hard part:-)
Be happy baking Bread1965
... lovely drawing.
really good, really bad but mostly and mainly just so so. To keep from having too much so so in life, that is is where the real art comes in. Anything to keep it from being boring, to keep it fresh, new and different, with all the wonder that goes with something unique is worth any effort and sacrifice - since nothing, especially the great things in life..... is ever free.
Thanks Grind and happy baking
Just make the whole recipe and send some to Max and Lexi!
I'm surprised you didn't add about 20 different whole grains into the mix :).
You were a swanky looking dude back then and certainly had or have plenty of talent!
The bread looks perfect for what it's supposed to be and must make some great french toast!
Happy Baking!
Ian, Max, Lexi and the rest of the LI gang (finally getting some nice weather tomorrow....70 plus degrees)
I told you a long time a ago I finally found some of my 40 years old architect stuff and would figure a way for you to see them. I had built a passive solar house while still in Arch School. I finally figured out how to get the photos on my computer The post before this one had that house and another one designed back then in it.
After 2 tours in Nam I let my hair grow out, begged my way back into Arch School after flunking out before Nam and didn't tell anyone I was Vietnam Vet because the students and staff were as far from that as anyone could get and I could be kicked out of school twice!. Never looked back and never worked as an architect either but I was a design build general contractor:-)
This is some special bread but would be better with some whole grains in it no doubt the French toast is killer too! Gad you are back. Lucy was worried bout you and her East Coast Packmates. She sends her best and
Happy Baking Ian
This SD Bread Makes Itself While You Are At Work ….Or At Retired Play
The bread looks sensational, I bet it tasted especially good as french toast since the sweetness would have made it the perfect breakfast treat. I'm a sucker for sweet things though, I always use strawberry whipped cream whenever I'm making french toast. Maybe just me though.