Gays in crisis have two options before them: dye your hair blonde or learn how to bake. Short, black hair is extremely difficult to bleach, so when I was laid off from my job recently, the first thing I did was order a loaf pan from Amazon.
– jeffrey
Thinking back on it, I’m actually not sure what I thought the end goal was. The void of unemployment felt terrifying, so perhaps imagining a cute, hypothetical bakery with my silly, non-existent baking experience was a way of focusing my thoughts on an idea that was tangible and smelled like butter. Then I did the math and realized I would have to bake and sell ~300 loaves of bread a day to make the same amount of income. Maybe I should order two loaf pans…
At any rate, baking was a welcome distraction now that I had limitless amounts of free time. I had always found baking and breadmaking daunting because you put in all this time and effort and you really don’t know how it’s going to turn out until the very end of the whole process when it’s too late to fix anything. Wait, is that a metaphor for my investment banking career? But if there’s one thing ten years as a corporate slave has taught me, it’s that I am capable of following meticulous directions and dealing with ambiguous situations. After making this recipe once, I realized, “It’s not that scary,” and was immediately excited about what I was going to do next.
Preparation time: 120 minutes | Cook time: 30 minutes | Total cook time: 150 minutes
Ingredients
For the tangzhong
- 2 tablespoons water
- 4 tablespoons milk
- 2 tablespoon flour
For the bread
- 2.5 cups all purpose flour
- 1.5 tablespoons active dry yeast / instant yeast
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Tangzhong mixture
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (room temperature)
To make the tangzhong mixture, combine the water, milk, and flour in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stirring constantly so the bottom doesn’t burn, the mixture should thicken after a few minutes (you’re looking for the consistency of a paste that is no longer runny). Set aside to cool.
In the meantime, combine the rest of the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt. Give it one thorough mix to ensure the equal distribution of the dry ingredients. Add the milk, egg, and cooled tangzhong and mix until the dough comes together into a rough ball. The dough should be sticky, but if it feels too wet to form a ball, add a more flour as necessary. Knead the mixture (or use the dough hook feature of a stand mixer) until the ball is smooth; this should take about 10-15 minutes. Add one tablespoon of room temperature butter at a time to the dough and continue kneading until it is completely incorporated. Once all the butter is added and the dough is smooth, cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and let proof for 30 minutes (or until the dough has doubled in size).
Once the dough finishes its initial proof, divide it into three equal pieces. Roll out each piece into a long rectangle (~9 inches long / ~9 inches wide). Fold the two sides of the dough toward the center one after the other so you end up with a shape that is still ~9 inches long but now only 3 inches wide. From there, roll the dough up in a spiral shape to form a small cylinder. Repeat with the other pieces and place all three in a loaf pan (the open/spiral part of the pieces should be facing the sides of the pan). Proof one more time for another 30-40 minutes.
Before baking, you can either add an egg wash to the top (as pictured) to create the shiny/mounded look, or add the loaf pan cover so when the dough expands as it cooks, it forms a more uniform square shape. Regardless, bake in a 350 degree fahrenheit oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown. The bread is best enjoyed right after it cools, but if you need to refrigerate/freeze any leftovers, a quick toast will make it good as new!