Mia Bakes: Tang Yuan Milk Bread (Soft bread with minimal kneading)

Hey fellow bread-lovers! Yup, I'm back with yet another bread recipe, and this time you can get soft and fluffy bread with minimal kneading. Yes, MINIMAL kneading. NO WINDOWPANE STAGE REQUIRED! And the method of making the dough is like a one-bowl yudane method, coupled with high hydration level, to give you soft and fluffy bread without an extreme arm's workout. 

Sounds super easy, right? Let's go! 

The idea of this delicious tang yuan bread comes from super talented youtube-baker Tears of Happiness. If you haven't heard of her, you should totally check out her videos (it's all in Mandarin, though). 

So, to get 10 tangyuan buns, you'll need:

200g all purpose flour 

(or bread flour, if you fancy)

1.5 tsp castor sugar

1 tsp instant yeast

1/4 tsp salt

1.5 tsp oil 

(I used vegetable oil)

1 large egg (around 50g w/o shell)

42ml BOILING HOT water

70 - 75ml whole milk (lukewarm)

(I added around 72ml)

10 frozen tangyuan (glutinous rice dumpling) of your choice, DEFROSTED

(I used peanut filling) 

First up, in a large bowl, add in the flour, salt and sugar, and give it a quick stir. Then, pour in the HOT (make sure it's BOILING HOT, just like making your yudane dough) water and stir it around with a spoon or chopsticks. Part of the dry flour will start clumping together to form bits of "yudane dough". Set the bowl aside and for the hot dough bits to cool down. 

In a small bowl, pour in the lukewarm whole milk and add in the yeast and give it a quick stir to mix well and set aside. 

Then, crack in an egg into the flour/dough bits mixture and pour in the milk-yeast mixture. Mix well with a spoon or chopsticks until fully combined. At this point, the dough will be extremely, extremely wet and mushy. If you attempt to tear off bits of the dough, it will just break off without any form of resistance. Cover the bowl with some clingwrap and set aside at room temperature for around 20 to 30 minutes. This allows the gluten to form on its own. 

After 20 to 30 minutes, you can check the dough by pulling at a corner of the dough ball, it should start to stretch well for gluten has developed. Then, add in 1.5 tsp of oil and start kneading the dough in the bowl. DO NOT knead the dough on a counter as it will be super sticky and nearly impossible to work with. Due to the addition of oil, hand-kneading of the dough will start off as being rather easy as the dough will not tend to stick to your hands. But after just a few minutes of working with the dough, the oil will be fully absorbed by the dough and it will start to be extremely sticky to both your hands and the bowl. Continue kneading the dough by a "folding" method instead. Pulling out the dough from a corner and tucking it back into the centre of the dough ball. Knead the dough for around 10 to 15 minutes until you are able to roughly tuck it into a ball shape. 

Then, wrap the bowl with clingwrap and leave it at a warm place for 1st proofing for about 1 hour. 

After 1 hour, check for completion of the 1st proofing by coating your finger generously with flour and poking it right down the centre of the dough ball. The hole should remain as it is with very minimal rebound. 

Then, sprinkle a generous amount of flour over the top of the dough ball and coat your hands with more flour and punch down the dough to deflate it. Knead it slightly until all the air bubbles has been deflated before overturning it out onto a well floured work surface. The dough will still be very sticky, so do make sure that your work surface is well dusted with flour. With flour-dusted hands, shape the dough ball into a log and cut it into 10 equal pieces and fold each piece roughly into a ball (you probably won't be able to make the dough into round balls by the traditional surface-rolling method as it'll stick) and cover with a clingwrap to prevent drying. 

Taking a piece of the dough ball, you can either roll it out slightly with a well-floured rolling pin, or simply flatten and stretch it out using your hands, as the dough is VERY soft, it will be very easy to flatten and stretch out. Then, take a piece of the defrosted tangyuan and wrap it into the dough ball. Pinch at the seams to seal properly and roll it around in between your hands to ensure roundness of the bun and set it on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, seam side down. 

Repeat with the remaining 9 dough balls/tang yuan to get a total of 10 buns. 

If your oven has a proofing function, proof your buns in the oven for around 20 to 25 minutes, until the buns grow around 1.5 to 2x in size. If your oven does not have a proofing function, you can either 2nd proof the buns at room temperature for a longer time (around 45 minutes), or save a bit more time by placing a bowl of hot water under your baking tray in a closed oven. 

Check for completion of the 2nd proofing by coating your fingertip with some flour and lightly press down on the side of the bun. If a slight indentation is left behind with a little bit of rebounding back, the buns are ready to be baked!

Pre-heat your oven to 175 degree Celsius and bake the buns for around 15 to 18 minutes, until the surface turns a light golden brown and when you tap the surface with your fingernails, it produce a hollow sound. 

TADAA~ 

I was expecting the filling to be more runny, like Liu Sha Bao, but they turned out pretty dry. These buns are best eaten when still warm, when the peanut filling are still moist, the mochi soft and chewy and the bread super soft and fluffy.

Look at that fluffiness!

Only a 10 minutes easy kneading required, no windowpane stage achieved, and using just plain flour. 

Awesome, right? 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Nutella / Lemon Curd Stuffed Milk Bread

As you know, I used to own a Mayer Breadmaker. Yes, USED to. It has served me decently well for almost 2 years and then decided it's time to go halfway kneading the dough for my 1st try at a chocolate babka  a while back and I've stopped baking my own bread ever since.... 

And then one fine day, I decided just to test my own endurance and see if I can manage hand-kneading my bread dough from scratch, so here it is!

The recipe is simple, just very basic milk bread with about 1 tbsp filling of your choice. I decided to make a variety of fillings with nutella, lemon curd and raisins!

So to get 8 small buns, you'll need:

250g all purpose flour + 1.5 tsp vital wheat gluten

(or 250g bread flour)

30g castor sugar

160 - 170ml milk 

1 tsp (~3g) instant yeast

1/2 tsp salt

20g soften unsalted butter

 fillings of your choice

In a large bowl, add in your flour, sugar, salt and yeast, making sure that the yeast and salt are not in direct contact with each other. Then, add in 160ml of milk and stir with a pair of chopsticks or wooden spoon until the wet and dry ingredients starts to come together to form crumbly dough bits before going in with your hands to start kneading the dough in the bowl. At this point, you may either add more milk or flour depending on the hydration level of your flour and continue kneading until the dough pulls away from the bowl, coming together into a ball and your hands are relatively clean of sticky dough bits. 

Then, take your dough ball out and flatten it onto a clean work surface. Add in the soften butter and first fold the dough over the butter for a few times before started to knead it with your hands again. This time, be prepared to really work the dough out and knead for at least 30 minutes in order to reach the windowpane stage. I kneaded my dough for 45 minutes. 

And if you have no idea what windowpane stage means, it means you have to pull off a small piece of the dough and stretch it out with your hands. It should be able to be stretched till extremely thin, losing its opacity, and should you puncture a hold in the dough, the edges of the hole should be smooth, free of jagged edges. 

Fold the edges of the dough ball down its centre to form the dough into a round ball with smooth outer surface and leave it in a clean, oiled bowl and cover with some cling wrap. Leave the dough overnight in the fridge for 1st proofing, for at least 6 to 8 hours. 

The next morning, take your dough out of the fridge and leave it standing on the counter for at least 30 to 45 minutes for it to rise back up to room temperature. Check if the 1st proofing is done by poking a finger right down the middle of the dough ball, the hole should stay as it is (with slight rebounding at most) and the dough ball shouldn't collapse. 

Then, turn the dough ball out onto a lightly floured surface and give it a few kneads to knock out all the air bubbles within. Using a bench scraper or just twisting with your bare hands, divide the dough ball into 8 equal pieces, rolling each piece into a small ball shape and setting them aside, covered with a layer of cling wrap to prevent drying. 

Then, take out a piece of the dough ball and roll it out slightly with a small rolling pin. You should roll it in a way such that it's thinner at the outer rim and slightly thicker in the centre. Then, add a dollop (about 1 tbsp or slightly less) of nutella, lemon curd or any type of filling you fancy (I will not suggest watery jam though, they will cause the buns to burst open) onto the centre and wrap it up into a ball by first folding the outer edges in and pinching the seam close. Flip the bun over, seam side down, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and move on to the rest of the dough balls. 

If your oven has a proofing function, set the stuffed buns to rise in your oven at about 38 to 40 degree celsius for about 20 to 25 minutes, until the buns has expanded to 1.5x the original size. You can check for completion of the 2nd proofing by coating the tip of your finger with some flour and tapping it lightly on the bun. The depression should just bounce back very slightly, and still remains visible. 

If your oven do not have a proofing function, you can either leave the buns to proof at room temperature for about 1 hour, or create your own "proofing function" in your oven by placing your buns on the top rack and a dish of hot water on the lower rack. 

When the buns are proofed, take them out from the oven and set your oven temperature to 175 degree Celsius. Once pre-heated, let your buns bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Check for doneness of the buns by tapping on the bun surface, if it sounds hollow, it's done baking. 

These buns are crusty on the outside, but super soft and fluffy on the inside! 

The only problem is that they are best eaten on day 1, for the lose the freshness very quickly. 

Or perhaps, I just need a better method of keeping them. 

And if you're also filling your bread with lemon curd, please double, triple check that your seams are well pinched. Lemon curd is quite "jam-ish" and they do explode out from the buns much easier compared to nutella. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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