Milk Bread

If you have never had milk bread before, you are in for a treat! It is oh so soft, pillowy even. It has a lovely crumb and stays soft for days thanks to an ingenious Japanese method of pre cooking some of the flour, milk and water together into something called a tangzhong. Do not be intimidated by it though–if you have made gravy or bechemel before, or even if you have whisked anything in a saucepan over low heat, you have all the needed skills.

As per usual, this makes two loaves. One to gift and one to keep, should you be so inclined. The bread uses NY Times, Julia Moskin’s Japanese Milk bread as a base, but is scaled up, adapts technique, and a few other flourishes from several other milk bread recipes out there. It is a family favorite that works wonderfully for breakfast (or a snack) with butter and jam, regular toast, french toast, and even sandwich bread.

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Milk Bread

Ingredients

Tangzhong

  • ⅓ cup bread flour 45 grams
  • ½ cup whole milk
  • 1/2 cup water

Dough

  • 5 cups bread flour 650 grams
  • 1/2 cup sugar 120 grams
  • 4 teaspoons active dry yeast 14 grams
  • 2 teaspoons salt 8 grams
  • 3 eggs 2 slightly beaten, and one saved for an egg wash on top
  • 1 cup warm milk whole, or whole plus some 1/2 and 1/2
  • 8 tablespoons 1 stick softened butter at room temperature

Instructions

Make the tangzhong:

  1. In a small heavy pan, whisk flour, milk, and water together until smooth. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat and cook, whisking often, until thickened but still pourable, about 10 minutes. The tangzhong will thicken more as it cools. Scrape into a cup or bowl and lightly cover the surface with plastic wrap. Set aside to cool to room temperature, or put in the fridge to cool more rapidly (this can keep in the fridge for a few days).

Make the dough:

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt and mix for a few seconds, to combine. Add the beaten eggs, milk and the tangzhong. Turn the mixer on low speed and knead for about 5 minutes. The dough will look impossibly sticky, but just scrape it down off the sides and carry on.

  2. Next, add in the soft butter in thirds, waiting to incorporate the new butter until the previous amount is mostly mixed in, scraping the sides as you necessary. You want the butter to disappear into the dough, but not melt. Once the butter is added, knead for another 7-10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and springy and just a bit tacky.

  3. Lightly butter the inside of a bowl. Use your hands to lift the dough out of the mixer bowl, shape it into a rough ball (the dough is pretty sticky still so will be hard to really shape), and place into the prepared bowl. Cover with a cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 40 to 60 minutes, depending on the warmth of your kitchen. You want to use rise as the indicator more than time here, so if it takes up to 75 minutes or a bit more, that is okay.
  4. Generously butter two 9-by-5-inch loaf pans.

Shape the loaves by making rolls:

  1. Prepare a lightly floured work surface and scoop the dough gently out onto it. It pays to be gentle here, as we don't want to push out all the great air bubbles we have gotten in the first rise. I like to do 8 small rolls to a loaf pan (2 rows of 4), but you could easily do 6 (2 rows of 3), or even 4 (1 row of 4). In order to make sure my dough balls end up the same size, I like to weigh the dough at this point and calculate the size of balls (by weight). The last time, I ended up with roughly 16 (8 balls per loaf), 85 gram balls to form two loaves, but again, I recommend weighing and doing your math, as your overall dough mass may differ depending on if you did cup or weight measurements, etc.

  2. Once you have all the balls separated and weighed, gently and ever so slightly flatten each one and fold the edges, and tuck underneath the dough to make a ball shape. You are looking to make the very center of the dough become the top, and the previous top pulled underneath. This should create a smoother top and a round ball. Once shaped, I like to place the rolls on the lightly floured work surface and gently cup over the top of them and move my hand in a circular motion gently rounding the balls and tightening the top of the dough more. Once you have all your balls shaped, gently place them into the two buttered 9-by-5-inch loaf pans and cover lightly with a cloth.

Final rise and bake

  1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

  2. Let the loaves rest 30 to 45 minutes until the risen dough is ever so slightly peeking over the edge of the pan. Take your remaining egg and whisk with a teaspoon of water. Brush the tops of the bread with the egg wash and bake on the bottom 1/3 of oven until golden brown and puffed 35 to 40 minutes.

  3. Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then remove to a wire rack and let cool at least 1 hour, but more is better. Enjoy!