Seeing all the sculptures from this weeks show, definitely opened the imagination from what I could do this weekend. Do I make one thing, with the different doughs and bake it all at the same time, like Pauls Lion or different things and bring them together in the final build. After spending some time reading up on the different possible breads that I could make I decided to go with the latter.
The main inspiration for the sculpture came from one of the breads that I found online. It reminded me of some breads I’d tried in Hong Kong a few years ago while on holiday. Some were really nice, the coconut cocktail buns were my favourite while others were slightly more questionable, like the red bean curd buns! The dough of the cocktail buns was similar to brioche, light, slightly sweet and after a bit of research I managed to find the recipe for this unique bread. This dough was enriched with egg, milk, and butter the same as brioche but this dough had a special starter added too.
This starter, called Tangzhong, is made from a roux of flour and water heated to 65℃ until it is thick, and then cooled to room temperature. The roux helps to keep the bread it soft and fluffy, even after a couple of days apparently. This method seems to have been introduced by Yvonne Chen 陳郁芬 who wrote a Chinese book, entitled “65°C湯種麵包” (Bread Doctor). She wrote about how this method originated from Japan, to help keep their breads fluffy and bouncy. The science behind it is that the gluten in the roux will absorb the moisture in the bread and making become leavened (rise more).
Getting back to the point, while researching the breads to use, I found a recipe for Tangzhong Matcha Green Tea Milk bread. I had bought some matcha powder recently and not had a chance to use it yet, so this would be a good excuse for some experimentation. Inspired by the use of green tea I then decided to make a tea cup and saucer sculpture, filled with green tea (or a version of). Along with the chinese bread, I had to think of another two breads to bake to make the sculpture.
The starting point for this had to be a bread that would hold its manipulated shape during the second prove as well as during the bake. For the cup I wanted to do the lattice weave that I had attempted the previous week with the biscuit box, so I started looking at doughs that have a good history of plaiting. The ideal bread for this seemed to be the Jewish challah, it’s sturdy and easy to manipulate and had a good sheen in it two. I decided that in order to keep the nice smooth shape of the bowl I’d keep the dough plain and just and he seeds on the outside for decoration.
The third bread needed to be a filled loaf, and as the fiancé has a likeness for spice, and because we’re going on holiday there soon, I chose to use Spanish chorizo and smoked paprika. To give the dough an extra bit of umph I added tomato purée and cooked onions. This bread made up the saucer of the sculpture and to ensure that I had enough I made double! With all the breads decided on it was time to start.
Easy Dough’s it
As I mentioned previously I need to make a flour and water starter for the tangzhong chinese bread, so this was the first thing to do so that it could cool to room temperature before using. While this was cooling I made a start on the challah. I’d read through a few recipes, some used fresh yeast others active dry yeast. I decided to go with the latter, because that’s what I had in the fridge and feel more confident with. The yeast had to be activated with warm water and sugar, until a foamy substance appeared on the surface. While this was activating a mixture of eggs, milk and melted butter was then added to the rest of the dry ingredients and with the help of my dough hook and Ken Jnr set to work bringing it all together. The active yeast mix was meant to create a stiffish dough, that needed to be worked for a further 8-10minutes until I was left with a smooth, silky dough. The dough was then transferrred to a clean oiled bowl and left to prove.
The saucer was next. This bread used two different types of flour, wholemeal and plain, which would hopefully make a nice robust bread. Sometimes using wholemeal flour can make the bread a bit dry. I was hoping to counter this with the use of the cooked onions adding some much moisture to the dough. However this may have added a little too much moisture as I needed to add a little more flour towards the end of the kneading process to bring it all together and making it less sticky. After a good 10 minutes kneading it with the dough hook I did the end part with my hands so that it was easier to judge the consistency of the dough. Once I was happy with the smooth elastic dough, it was transferred another clean oiled bowl and left to prove.
Back to the chinese bread. As I mentioned earlier I wanted to use the matcha green tea powder that I had sitting in my cupboard, not just to experiment but to get a good colour too. The plan was to make the bread look like a big whirl of alternating white and green, so that it would look like the swirl you would find on the top of a cappuccino. However are reading a few recipes on this new style of bread I was concerned that trying to roll it in this way would restrict the rise of the dough. Instead I went with the method’s in the recipes I was using, best stick to the experts knowledge especially a first attempt. In order to make enough bread to fill the challah cup, I made two doughs, one plain and the other green. The doughs were enriched with egg and milk similar to the challah, but the final kneaded dough is softer and feels more elastic.
With these final two doughs made, there was nothing left to do for another few hours, while they proved to double their size.
Knead to rise
After a tidy up and trip out to grab some breakfast I returned to 4 bowls fully risen dough. In the case of the chorizo dough it was a monster, however the challah looked like it could do with a little longer.
Starting with the nicely orange dough, I punched it down and split it into three. Being inspired by a picture I found on pintrest, I decided that the ‘saucer’ should have an open middle so that the cup would be able to balance on it. The middle circle of the sauce was a 3 strand plait, of which the ends needed to be tucked away under the start of the plait. The next part was strand of dough with the ends rolled clockwise and anti-clockwise. As you can see from the pictures these were places all the way around the outside of the plaited ring. The last part to bring it all together was to twist a rope of dough to keep everything together. I needed to leave some air around each element so that it had space to rise in the second prove. Due to the shear size of this structure, I construct it on two baking trays and leave to proof in the giant proving bag I had from last year.
Time for tea
With the saucer left to prove while the oven heated up I moved onto the green tea milk breads. This dough was so smooth and silky, quite unlike the filled wholemeal dough of the saucer. Each dough needed to be cut into 6 and rolled into a ball. A ball of each was then rolled out to an oval shape and laid, one on top of the other. The two layers were rolled again, to ensure that they were stuck together, and then folded into third, similar to if you were making puff pastry. The fold was rolled again and lastly the dough was rolled up, into a wheel. I chose to then cut the roll in half to help the design in the tin. I did this again with the rest of the dough alternating outer colour of the rolls as I went. Once they were all in the tin it too was a left to rise until doubled once again
Last but not Lattice
I’d left this bread until the end because the rise on the dough appeared to be a lot slower than the other breads, possibly because I used active dry yeast as opposed to the instant quick yeast. Regardless of the rise though the dough was nice and soft, silky and very elastic. I separated it into 2 equal portions and rolled out to the same size , or and close as I could get. Each one was then cut into strips with a pizza roller, one vertically and the other horizontally. The next step was to start the weaving in. The easiest method, and the one that stretched the dough the least was to fold back alternate lines of the vertical strips and lay a horizontal strip over the top. The strips were then unfolded over the top of hte horizontal stip and and the process repeated but by folding back the alternate vertical strips. To ensure each strip bonded with the other I brushed a little egg white on the joins too. After a good 20 minutes I had something that looked like a bread blanket!
Transferring this to the foil covered bowl required a bit of magic of hand eye coordination and quick flipping but I managed to do it on the first go without any breakages. The edges were then trimmed and re-rolled to create a twisted rope edging. The final piece was then left to prove again before the weave was brushed with egg white and sprinkled with sesame and poppy seeds.
Bake & Build.
The first to bake was the chorizo bread which needed a little extra time than the allotted amount as it didn’t seem to have that nice hollow sound in the middle. The consequence of this extended time did mean that the crust was a little darker than I would have like, but at least it wasn’t burnt. The second bake was the chinese green tea loaf, which came out with a lovely colour from the egg wash glaze and the smell was amazing! The cup was the last to go in, and for me the most impressive in design. I was a little worried that it would collapse when I removed the bowl, but luckily it didn’t. Everything held it’s shape, even when it was all put together,
Open for interpretation
As you can see from the pictures below the finishing piece held together well. However you will also see that the handle of the cup is missing, mainly due to a lack of dough. If this happened on the bake off I would certainly have lost points. Instead, as I’m not, I’m leaving it open for interpretation. It could be an egg cup, or a hanging basket, I prefer to see it as a Chinese cup and saucer that doesn’t have handles.
