This soft and cottony sugar twist bread are the best treat ever…they are a light version of brioche…same richness, full flavor with much less calories.

I made so many versions of this bread and I must admit, this version, so far is the best one…the real trick here is to add the butter after the gluten has form.  Yes, it will take more time to incorporate the butter into the dough but so worth the extra time as the crumb of the bread will be something out of this world…

In this recipe as many others I used the tangzhong or water roux method, which you can read more about it here

– Do I need to shape the bread as described here?

Absolutely not…you can shape the dough as you desire…in a pullman loaf, as an individual roll, as a pull-apart, braided, dinner rolls, in another word, which ever shape you want…and even filled it.

– Ready to try this recipe?

I got the idea of twisting the dough from My Mind Patch.

Here we go…

Ingredients:

Tangzhong or water roux

  • 50 g bread flour
  • 250 ml water

Bread dough

  • 550 g bread flour
  • 90 g sugar
  • 7 g salt
  • 7 g yeast
  • 20 g non-fat dry milk
  • 2 eggs (minus 1 ½ tablespoon), approximately 100 g
  • 65 g heavy cream
  • 20 g butter
  • 50g Earth Balance

Method:

Tangzhong or water roux

Whisk together the water and the flour until the mixture is well blended and free of lumps.

Stir the mixture while it cooks over the medium heat to reach 65C/150F. It takes about 2-3 minutes.

Continue whisking until the mixture starts to thicken. The mixture of flour will have “lines”.

Remove from the heat.

Transfer to a bowl, cover with a plastic film to avoid “skin” from forming.

Ready to add to the bread dough once is cool.

Water roux or Tangzhong can bend kept in the fridge for up to 48 hours.

Bread dough

In the mixer, add all the water roux, and all the other ingredients under bread, except for the butter.

Turn the machine and stir for 2 to 3 minutes, until a uniform very wet and sticky dough.

Increase the speed to “2” and let it mix for 15 minutes. The dough should be very sticky. Do not add extra flour as the dough will be less sticky as gluten forms.

Add the butter and mix for 15 to 20 minutes more. Take a small portion of the dough (like a golf ball) and stretch gently until a very thin and transparent membrane (windowpane).

If the dough tears mix for another 2-3 minutes until you achieve the windowpane test. The windowpane test, demonstrates that the gluten is very well developed and it will create a very light crumb. The dough should be very elastic.

Remove the dough from the mixer and place in a bowl by covering with a plastic film.

Let dough proof until the dough tripled to its original size.

 

Assembly

Knock back the dough and divide into balls of approximately 75 g each. Let them rest on the counter covered for 5 to 10 minutes.

If making sugar twist, roll one dough into a 16-18 inch length rope. Fold the rope into thirds and make a knot at one end, twist the bottom end around the top, and feed the loose end into the top hole. Please see the pictures above, it is much easier that it sound…

Place the twists in a baking pan, I used small square pans (3 twists) or a USA biscotti pan (7 twists). Cover the pan and let the twists rise until double in size.

Brush the top of the twists with the egg wash (remember the 1 ½ tablespoon egg from the dough?), and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350oF for 25 minutes. Remove and let it cool.

– Looking for more bread recipes? Check these out…

Thank you for visiting Color Your Recipes…have a colorful week!

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