Show the Working

Japanese milk bread

A tall square loaf with a cooked flour paste in the dough, baked lidded for flat sides.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter), dairy (milk).

Ingredients

tangzhong

dough

Method

  1. THE SAME COOKED FLOUR PASTE AS THE ANPAN on this site, and for the same reason: gelatinised starch holds far more water than raw flour, so the crumb stays soft for days. What differs here is the shaping and the tin.
  2. BAKED WITH A LID ON THE TIN, which is what makes it square. Without a lid it domes and is a different loaf. A baking sheet weighted on top of an ordinary tin does the same job.
  3. Tangzhong: whisk the 30 g of flour into the 150 ml of milk and cook, stirring, 2 to 3 minutes until it thickens into a paste that holds a line. Cool completely.
  4. Mix everything but the butter and knead 12 minutes. The dough is wet and should NOT have flour added -- it comes together late.
  5. Butter in once the gluten is developed, in pieces, and knead 6 minutes more until it passes a windowpane test. This loaf depends on that development more than most.
  6. Prove 1 hour until doubled.
  7. SHAPED IN THREE ROLLS, not one. Divide into three, roll each flat, fold the long sides in, then roll up from the short end like a swiss roll, and set the three side by side in the tin with the seams down. That is what gives the shreddable, stranded crumb.
  8. Second prove 50 to 60 minutes, until the dough reaches about 1 cm below the rim. Over-proved it pushes the lid off and under-proved it bakes with a gap at the top.
  9. Lid on. Bake at 190C for 30 to 35 minutes.
  10. Out of the tin IMMEDIATELY and onto a rack, or the steam trapped against the sides makes them damp and wrinkled.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Japan · All recipes