It’s summer time again, so to kick things off I’ve been smoking brisket. And since I have been making hokkaido milk bread as well, I thought that it was time again to try my hand on a smoked brisket bbq bao.

Here’s the resulting bao:

Filling:
1. Chopped brisket
2. 1/2 onion
3. BBQ sauce
4. Corn starch slurry
5. Saute onions, add brisket and bbq sauce. Thicken with surry. Cool to room temp.

Bun:
1. Hokkaido milk bread with tang zhong recipe
2. Divide into 12 portions
3. Fill and roll into buns, proof, egg wash
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes

* Brisket was dry, learning a new smoker.

Thanks to Floydm’s bake of an hokkaido milk bread with tangzhong and detailed write-up on TheFreshLoaf, this there has been a flurry of tang zhong related bakes on TFL. While I had made a few breads with tang zhong before, I wasn’t blown away. However, Floyd pointed out two things for me: (1) tang zhong is a 5:1 water to flour ratio and (2) 25% of the water weight can be used for tang zhong.

Armed with the above knowledge, I converted the hokkaido milk bread recipe that I have been using. I have varied the recipe slightly to suit my needs, but results are guaranteed to be a hit.

Hokkaido Milk Bread with Tangzhong Recipe

Ingredients:

• 600g bread flour
• 6g instant yeast
• 30g milk powder
• 80g sugar
• 10g salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 250g fresh milk
• 150g heavy cream

Method:
Tangzhong

1. Add 20g of flour to 100g of milk.
2. Over medium heat, mix thoroughly to combine and continue to mix till 65 deg. C.
3. Remove roux from heat, and allow to cool to room temperature. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent drying out.

Milk Bread

1. Heat remaining 150g milk and 150g of heavy cream to 90 deg F.*
2. Combine all ingredients in a stand mixer.
3. Beat until windowpane is formed.**
4. Take the dough and hand knead a little, and form a ball.
5. Return the mixing bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise till doubled. Approx. one hour.
6. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces and shape into mini loafs.
7. Place 2 pieces per greased loaf pan, cover with plastic and allow to rise till doubles. Approx one hour.
8. 30 minutes prior to bake, pre-heat oven to 350 deg F.
9. Prior to bake, brush heavy cream on the tops of the loaves.
10. Bake at 350 deg. F. for 40 minutes. 10 min. before, check the loaves. If it’ll be too dark, cover with aluminum foil.

* This is 70 seconds in my microwave
** Min. 20 minutes with a Kitchen Aid on Speed 3.

A very busy weekend of baking for me (finally). 2 every day boules, 2 10% rye/10% whole wheat sourdough boules, and 12 morning buns. I need to figure out how to make 24 morning buns, as 12 is rough from a labor perspective. While delicious, the amount of effort to produce 12 buns doesn’t feel economical. Fortunately, work as a bake sale tomorrow. Maybe some baking tonight or early in the morning will solve my dilemma.

I have been making morning buns as of late.  But after a two week hiatus, physician I almost forgot the recipe.  In prior bakes, I wasn’t documenting (rare) since I was baking in rapid succession.  I was simply working off a base recipe while making my own adjustments. However, with me almost forgetting the recipe, I thought it best to write it down for prosperity.

Morning Bun Recipe

Makes 12 morning buns.

Ingredients:

Detrempe

• 600 g all-purpose flour
• 60 g sugar
• 12 g kosher salt
• 10 g instant yeast
• 200 g tepid water
• 200 g tepid milk
• 30 g of melted butter or oil

Topping

• 100 g sugar
• 20 g cinnamon
• 2 tbs of melted butter

Butter Block

• 2 stick unslalted butter, sliced horizontally into 18 planks

Method:

• Mix flour, sugar, yeast, and salt
• Mix in milk, water, and butter/oil until ingredients are incorporated
• With a dough scraper, fold the dough once so that it’s not a shaggy mess. However, don’t overwork.*
• Rest for 60 minutes, until dough doubles in size
• Roll dough into a 14″ x 18″ square
• Place the butter planks on the dough, emulating a butter block**
• Fold the dough so that the butter is completely covered and letter fold #1
• Roll the dough out and letter fold #2***
• Rest the dough in the refrigerator, covered, for 20 minutes.**** Prep 2 large muffin pans with butter.

 

• Melt about 2tbs of butter.  Mix sugar and cinnamon for topping mixture.
• Roll the dough out into a 14″ x 18″ rectangle
• Brush dough with melted butter and spread the topping
• Roll dough into cylinder
• Cut into approx. 2.5″ pieces, yielding 12 rounds
• Place each round into a muffin spot
• Proof for 60 minutes, about 30 minutes before preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Put the morning buns into the oven and lower heat to 375 degrees.  Bake for 18-25 minutes.
• Take out of the oven, let cool a minute or two, then remove the morning bugs from the pan and cool on a wire rack
• After you can gently handle, coat each bun in sugar.

* One fold smooths out the dough. I don’t do more folds or knead as I don’t want to develop a lot of gluten.

** I thought I was all slick for doing this cheater lamination, until I looked at a Jacques Pepin book and he’s been doing for ages.

*** I used to do 3 folds ala a croissant, but found that I like the texture of 2 folded dough for my morning buns.

**** If I only do 2 folds, I don’t rest the dough in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. With 2 folds the gluten hasn’t been worked sufficiently and the dough remains easy to roll out. With 3 folds, the rest of the dough is quite welcome.

Most of the bread baking has been limited to the lodge combo cooker. While the bread remains fantastic, psychiatrist
the boule shape is a little tiring. In a thread on TheFreshLoaf about cooking in a dutch oven, ask
a poster wished for a baguette sized cooker. Since I like baguettes too, disinfection
I thought that an epi wreath would be something fitting of a combo cooker.

The following is 75% hydration, 10% wheat and 5% rye sourdough. Not the 66% hydration of the baguette, but this was the dough I had retarding in the fridge. Not bad for a trial run.

Preheat oven for 500 degrees. Bake at 450 for 15 minues with lid on and then 15 minutes with lid off.

Our friends also had a newborn in recent weeks and we arranged to meet up today.  I had baked some sourdough batards to give to our friends (parents with newborns need ready made food), healthful but unfortunately we cancelled on them.  Our daughter’s eating is taking too long, which makes long excursions impossible.

Note the slight overproof in the crumb cross section.  Also, with the stone bread oven, I’m not able to get a pronounced ear on my batards.   At least I have more work to do.

Traditionally, luk chup are shaped into miniature replicas of Thailand’s tropical fruit – mangoes, erectile mangosteens, peppers, papayas, and oranges.  Later, cherries and strawberries were added to the mix.  Because I lacked food coloring and I’ve been baking a decent amount, I made bread shaped luk chup.