I did contact the KAF baker's hotline, but I really needed a tangzhong AND St Lucia expert; admittedly, I had already put in some serious time trying to figure this out, which might have made me the expert on St Lucia + tangzhong as of noon today... Here's what I did: I upped the milk to 437 g to get a roughly 75% hydration for the dough. I heated all the milk with the saffron, poured the hot mixture into a glass measure, then returned 175 g of saffron milk to the saucepan with 35 g flour to make the tangzhong. I added the butter to the remaining saffron milk to melt and cool to lukewarm alongside the finished tangzhong; then proceeded with the rest of the recipe. The dough was very sticky so I added 4 tsp flour. It rose very rigorously! I opted for 24 buns to have enough to save for a few days for testing. The end result was noticeably fluffier than usual. My son - who has been eating these buns for 9 years - said they are good but different, not as rich tasting. The real test will be whether they remain soft tomorrow. Thanks, Baker's Hotline, for helping me talk this through - that was useful even without a known or solid answer.

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