I love the tangzhong method of bread baking, it gives such great results every time - pillowy soft, slightly sweet, incredibly versatile bread.
If you haven't heard of tangzhong before then it is quite simple; it just involves making a cooked paste of flour and water which is added to the bread dough; the dough is quite sticky, so is best made in a stand mixer, but it stays soft for days and is SO good!
Here I've re-worked my Hokkaido milk bread recipe to make tangzhong burger buns. They are fairly similar to brioche buns, but are lighter on the butter while still being lovely and soft and slightly sweet.
They are perfect for burgers, or just for sandwiches or to use as dinner rolls. I will be sharing a burger recipe later on this week that I served in these buns so stay tuned!
Tangzhong Burger Buns
Ingredients
Tangzhong:
- 20 g (2tbsp) strong white bread flour
- 100 ml (100 g) (⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon + 1 tsp) water
Dough:
- 350 g (scant 3 cups) strong white bread flour
- 7 g (2 tsp) fast action yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 50 g (¼ cup) caster sugar
- 1 tablespoon milk powder (optional)
- 125 ml (125 g) (½ cup) full fat milk (or unsweetened non-dairy milk)
- 1 large egg (or 3 tablespoon aquafaba or non-dairy milk)
- 50 g (scant ¼ cup) softened butter (or vegan butter)
To Glaze:
- 1 egg, beaten with a splash of milk (use milk to glaze if vegan)
- sesame seeds
Instructions
- To make the tangzhong, place the flour in a small saucepan and gradually whisk in the water. Place over a medium heat and cook, whisking constantly until it has thickened to a wallpaper paste-like consistency. Remove from the heat, scrape into a bowl and cover with clingfilm directly on the surface, set aside to cool.
- Place the flour, yeast, salt, sugar and milk powder in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, lightly stir together and make a well in the centre. Add the egg (or aquafaba/milk), milk and tangzhong to the well and mix on a low speed until it comes together into a dough.
- Add the butter and mix on a high speed until the dough is very stretchy and comes away from the sides of the bowl, this can take about 15 minutes, even in a stand mixer.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover with clingfilm and either place somewhere warm to rise until doubled in size, about 1-2 hours, or in the fridge overnight.
- Line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Divide the risen dough into 8 equal pieces and shape each piece into a ball on a lightly floured surface. Spread the balls out well spaced apart on the baking sheet and loosely cover with oiled clingfilm. Leave to rise for about 1 hour until puffy.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Brush the risen buns with the beaten egg (or non-dairy milk) and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for about 20 minutes until deep golden, the internal temperature should reach 90°C.
- Transfer the buns to a wire rack to cool before serving, store in an airtight container.
Jo @ Jo's Kitchen Larder
These look so good! I am really intrigued by the tangzhong method as have never come across it before. Will definitely give the rolls and method a go as well 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
hannahhossack
Thanks Jo! The tangzhong method makes wonderful soft bread, it is well worth a try!
Sumayya
These are tempting the tastebuds of those who can't have wheat and/or gluten, who've just had a big meal! We are almost speechless. Well done on baking up something else that looks fab
hannahhossack
Thanks Sumayya! 🙂
Angela / Only Crumbs Remain
Wow! They look seriously amazing. I've not come across the tangzhong method before but I'll definitely be giving it a try especially when they look this good. Pinned.
Angela x
hannahhossack
Thanks Angela! You should definitely give it a try, it makes amazing bread! x
Angela
These look great Hannah - so light and fluffy, a great alternative to a brioche burger bun.
hannahhossack
Thanks Angela, they are just like brioche but don't contain anywhere near as much butter!
Karen
Hello Hannah, I stumbled across your Blog whilst googling 'milk bread'. What a happy accident!! I've been cooking for over 40 years both professionally and for pleasure, have a vast collection of cookbooks and enjoy reading a cooking from a lot of very accomplished food Blogs. I just wanted to say that yours is, in my opinion, right up there with some of the best. It is beautifully photographed, written extremely well and is genuinely 'useable'with well laid out recipes and a lovely archive. Absolutely brilliant!
Thanks to you I had my first attempt at Tanzhong method and I love it! SO much easier than other enriched doughs and with an overnight cold prove it's really easy to handle and shape. I took inspiration from your hot cross bun loaf and created a 'Pannetone' version using dried fruit and Pannetone extract (a fab', all natural flavouring from the brilliant Bakery Bits). The result was just delicious and the method will now be firmly enbedded in my bread repertoire.
You're obviously a very creative and curious cook so I don't know if you've already come accross 'Brave Tart' http://bravetart.com/recipes/ but Stella has an awful lot of interesting and innovative stuff on there and her pieces for 'Serious Eats' come up with some very thought provoking ideas. This one http://www.seriouseats.com/2016/05/how-to-make-caramel-without-melting-sugar.html is pretty life changing for bakers......
Well done Hannah, keep it up!
hannahhossack
Hi Karen, what a lovely comment, thank you so much and I am so pleased that you like my recipes. Tangzhong panettone sounds like a fabulous idea, I must give it a try! I am also a big fan of Brave Tart, she is a culinary genius! I haven't tried her caramel sugar before though, what a fantastic idea.
Salma Sayeed
Hello there. Thank you so much for the recipe. I tried it out and the results are marvellous.
I just have one question. For serving 8 buns, the tangzhong starter is 20g of flour to 100ml of water. If I need to make 4 serves of buns or say 12, do I need to make any changes in the starter or should I keep that constant?
Thank you once again 🙂
hannahhossack
Hi Salma, Wonderful! I'm so glad you liked the recipe! If you are changing the quantities of the recipe then you will need to change the quantity of tangzhong too; so for 4 buns you would need 10g flour and 50ml water etc.
Salma Sayeed
Thank you so much for the prompt reply. It will definitely prove useful, as I am doing research on the science behind this technique. Wish me luck. 🙂
jae
I just took these out of the oven.... instead of egg and sesame seeds I brushed the raised raw dough with garlic flavored olive oil, ground rosemary and pink Himalayan salt. They look and smell amazing!
Lukas
I see you like using milk powder. What effect has it on the dough?
Thanks
hannahhossack
Hi Lukas, the milk powder adds flavour and helps to keep the dough soft but it is fine to omit it if you want.
Sobia
Hi can i freeze raw buns for later use
hannahhossack
Hi, I haven't tried freezing unbaked buns before so I can't say for sure but I get the feeling that it wouldn't work. You can freeze them once they have been baked and cooled however - allow to defrost then refresh in a low oven when needed.
Salma
I haven't frozen bun shaped dough, but I have kept the dough in cold temperature, not frozen. And I used oiled cling film to wrap it up. However, the texture and consistency isn't the same as fresh dough post calling... But manageable.
Alana Clark
I have frozen butterhorn dough before you let rise the second time and they come out beautiful. When I am ready to cook them I take out 5 hours before n let them thaw n have second rise. They rise n taste delicious. Just a fyi hope maybe this help.
Linda lee
Hi. Can this recipe be made vegan version? I would be interested to try.
hannahhossack
Hi Linda, I haven't tested a vegan version of these but you could try swapping the milk for soy milk, the butter for a dairy free butter/margarine (the solid block kind rather than the spreadable kind in a tub.) and the egg for a flax egg or commercial egg replacer. Let me know how they turn out if you do give them a go!
Clémentine
Hi, I would like to make these buns but I only have dry active yeast. Would it be ok? As it is to be mixed with water and sugar I don’t know how to proceed. Thanks
hannahhossack
Hi Clementine, yes that will work fine but it may take a little longer to rise than the instant yeast. Just mix it with the milk (lukewarm) and a teaspoon of the sugar and set it aside for about 10 minutes until it becomes foamy before adding the rest of the ingredients and proceeding with the recipe as written.
Jared
I just made a triple batch of these today. I did reduce the sugar to just 1/4 total, just personal preference for a less sweet bun. But they turned out phenomenal. I will be making them again. Cheers
Agnes
I just made these and they're so good! The texture is incredible, super soft and fluffy, and they taste amazing! I've tried making enriched doughs before but they never came out anywhere near this soft. The only change I made was to halve the sugar. I don't have a mixer but the dough came together fine by hand it just took a while. Thank you so much for this recipe!
Judy
Love these buns, especially with your Mexican bean burgers inside! My second batch just out of the oven and smell delicious. Can’t go back to buying brioche burger buns ever again!!
Martina
Hi Hannah,
I would like to make your buns, because they look so fab but I need your help for understanding the recipe: There are two different „Tbsp,tsp“ weights. What does that mean exactly?
Thanks for your help.
Martina
Hannah
Hi Martina, Tbsp is shorthand for tablespoon, which is a 15ml measuring spoon, and tsp is teaspoon, which is a 5ml spoon. Make sure that you use actual measuring spoons not just regular ones.
Arielli
Hi,
Over the past 2days, I've made 3 of your dough recipes using this method! I initially started with a recipe from another site, and it was great, so decided to try others to see if it was a fluke! I've never made such soft bread before, so thank you! I've made the cinnamon rolls, the wholemeal loaf, and getting ready to bake these burger buns. While the output was very soft, I think my oven runs abit hot/higher. I had to take out the rolls earlier, the loaf came out very dark with a hard crust (I wrapped it in foil afterwards and was able to get back some softness). For next time, should I lower the temp and bake for same time OR keep same temp and bake for less time? Either way, what new temp or time would you suggest? Thank you!
Hannah
Hi Arielli, so glad you are enjoying my tangzhong recipes! I would suggest baking the rolls for the same time at a lower temp. I'd go for 180C/350F. I've updated the recipe to include gram weights for the liquids. In the UK we generally have a ml measuring jug rather than using cups but I do often weigh out liquids in grams. For liquids like water and milk the weight in grams is the same as the ml measurement (or close enough), so 100ml water = 100g. Do bear in mind that the same is not true for all liquids however (eg oil).
arielli
Thank you! The 350 did the trick. I split the dough and used half for buns. I was too impatient and baked it at the recommended temp and sure enough the exterior was hard, but still soft inside. I rolled the other half into hotdog buns and actually baked it at 350 before I saw your response. And that seems to be work alot better. Nice and soft in and out! Perfect! Thank you again!!
Arielli
Oh, I forgot to ask, is it possible to include the liquid quantities using oz or gram as well? For some reason, my scale doesn't have a ml measure. And I have to use a separate online conversion to covert ml to oz.
I notice you did include cup measurements for liquid ingredients, so would you say its 'safer' to use cups with liquids. (I know its generally advised to use weight to measure dry ingredients).
Thanks again!
HS118
These buns are amazing! i've made them 3 times and each time they are perfect 😀 i just wanted to ask if i could make them ahead and how long they would stay soft for in an airtight container?
Matt
I just made these and they were so good. However, mine were more round balls and not very bun like in shape. Couldn’t fit a nice size vegan patty on them. How do you get yours nice and flat?
Hannah
Hi Matt, after shaping them into balls you can use your hand to flatten them out into more of a patty shape, that way they shouldn't be as domed after rising.