A couple months ago, I ran an experiment involving making bread with Tanzhong, Yudane and Yogurt. I am still wrapping my head on how to present all that information in a blog post but the high level conclusion is this: incorporating any of the three creates a more tender bake than without.

These yogurt buns are based off one of the bread bakes I did for the experiment. I really like the flavor the yogurt adds to the buns, giving it more than one dimension. And its acidity, which relaxes the gluten strands in the dough, makes the buns soft and tender.

There is one thing to be careful of: because its acidity inhibits gluten formation, the dough takes a lot longer to knead and come together. For example, getting to that “windowpane” stage, kneading by hand, took about 20 minutes for me. If you have a KitchenAid or a machine that kneads dough, this isn’t a problem, but when kneading by hand, it is laborious. Therefore, I am providing an optional alternative process for hand kneading that includes a autolayse step to make the dough easier to manage, which you can find below. This definitely adds more steps, making the process more complex, but it makes kneading just little easier. Of course, you can always just stick to the master method, which is what is outlined in the recipe.

alternative process for hand kneading

1. Reserve 10g milk and a pinch of sugar and set aside.
2. Combine together milk, sugar and egg. Add salt and bread flour and let rest for 30 minutes.
3. Heat up the reserved milk in a microwave for about 5s. Dissolve in the reserved sugar. The milk should be warm but not too hot. Dissolve in yeast and set aside until it is foamy ~3 minutes.
4. Add yeast into the rested dough and knead until it is well incorporated. Add in the yogurt and repeat the kneading. Once the dough has come together, add butter and continue to knead until it becomes smooth and elastic. Cover and let rise for about 1 hour.
5. Working with 1 dough ball at a time, roll it out into a long strip. Add raisins, pressing them into the dough. Roll up the dough from one end and before you reach the end, fold the sides in and then roll to close. Pinch the seams close and shape into a ball. Repeat with the rest of the dough balls. Cover and let rise for 1 hour.
6. Preheat oven to 350F. Brush with egg wash and bake for about 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

Looking for more bun recipes? Check these out:

• Basic Soft Bread Rolls (Tangzong)
• Baked Ube Bun [Sourdough or Yeasted]
• Sourdough Discard Butter Milk Buns
• Sourdough Discard Butter Milk Buns