Soft Milk Bread Recipe

Here’s a milk bread recipe that yields about 680g of bread. The crumb and crust are very soft. I am using the tangzhong method which requires a roux. This bread is usually called Hokkaido Milk bread, but seriously it has nothing to do with Hokkaido.

The roux is basically starch. It helps the bread to retain moisture and also helps in the gelling of starches in the bread.

What you need is:

• 25g AP flour
• 98g milk

Mix this in a small saucepan over low heat until it just starts to solidify. This happens exactly at the 60-65°C mark. Take it off the heat and stick it in your mixing bowl.

• 68g cream
• 1 egg (55g)
• 50g sugar
• 4g salt
• 30g butter
• 28g milk
• 2.5g yeast
• 330g bread flour

Mix this all in together. The tangzhong should temper with the butter and milk so it’ll be lowered to a lukewarm temperature for your yeast. Just keep kneading it till you get a nice window pane dough.

It needs a total of 3 hours to properly rise. So let it proof for 1.5h, degas it gently, shape it into your loaf and then proof for another 1.5h and bake for 35 min at 170°C