Haptic rendering of soft bodies is essential in medical simulations of procedures such as surgery or palpation. The most commonly used approach is to recreate the sense of touch using a specific design and control of a robotic arm. In this paper, we propose a new approach, based on soft-robotics technology. We create a tangible deformable device that allows users to “touch” soft tissues and perceive mechanical material properties, in a realistic manner. The device is able to dynamically provide user touch with different stiffness perceptions, thanks to actuators placed at the boundaries. We introduce a control algorithm, based on inverse Finite Element Analysis, which controls the actuators in order to recreate a desired stiffness that corresponds to the contact with soft tissues in the virtual environment. The approach uses antagonistic actuation principle to create a wide range of stiffness. We validate our algorithm and demonstrate the method using prototypes based on simple mechanisms.