Hokkaido milk bread
This recipe will make 6 rolls of 120 g each. Depending on your preference, you can bake these as individual freeform rolls, all together in a classic rectangular loaf or in a square or round pan.
If you have a dough mixer, you it’s not strictly necessary to let the dough rest after the first mix. I only do this because the dough is extremely sticky, letting it rest will let the gluten form and make it a bit more cohesive for further handling.
- 60 ml water
- 60 ml milk
- 25 g flour
- 350 g white flour
- 145 g tangzhong
- 120 ml milk
- 60 g butter (unsalted)
- 50 g white sugar
- 7 g salt
- 7 g active dry yeast (if using fresh yeast, double this)
- 1 egg
- 1 egg (optional)
- splash of milk (optional)
- add the water and flour to a pan
- whisk until there are no lumps
- whisk in the milk
- heat on medium heat, whisk continuously
- remove from the heat as soon as it has a creamy pudding consistency
- cover and let it cool to room temperature
- warm the milk to 40-45 °C
- add the yeast to the milk, let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes until frothy
- in a bowl, add the egg, sugar, tangzhong, flour and milk with yeast
- mix a little with a spoon or spatula
- add the salt
- mix furhter until combined into a sticky dough
- cover and let it rest for 30 minutes
- soften (or melt, but make sure it is not hot!) the butter
- add it to the dough and knead (using your hands if you want)
- stretch and fold the dough as best as you can for 5 to 7 minutes until smooth-ish (it can be very sticky, just do your best)
- make a ball
- cover and let it rest for 1 to 2 hours until it doubles in size (or overnight in the fridge)
- make individual dough balls of about 120 g each
Depending on how you want to shape it, do one of the following:
- flatten the balls into rectangles, the short side should be approximately the width of your pan)
- roll up the rectangles
- place them one after the other in your pan until it is full
- if you have too many balls, you can bake them separately as rolls
- flatten the dough and roll it back up, shape however you like
- if you are baking them in a square or round pan, place them in the pan with about 1.5 to 2cm between each ball
- let the dough rise until doubled in size
- pre-heat the oven to 180 °C
- make an egg wash or milk wash
- brush the tops liberally with the wash
- bake individual rolls for 25 minutes, loaves up to 35 minutes (internal temperature should be 85 to 90 °C)
- when done, remove from the oven and let it cool for 5 to 10 minutes
- remove from the pan and let cool on a rack