Fluffy Milk Bread Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell. And today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making a fluffy, incredibly soft milk bread. So let's get started. First off, the milk. We're gonna use a quarter cup of whole milk and add that to a small pot, along with a quarter cup of water. To this, we're gonna add three tablespoons of bread flour. This step is called making the tangzhong. Pardon my pronunciation. And what we're doing is cooking flour in the milk and water under heat. This will gelatinize the starches and give you a taller, fluffier, softer bread with a longer shelf life. The flour will be able to absorb much more liquid and the texture is gonna be so amazing. Three tablespoons. Grab a whisk. You're gonna mix this up so it's nice and combined and then we'll bring it over heat. Whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk. We're gonna take this onto the stovetop and cook it over medium heat for two to four minutes, stirring frequently. Right now, it looks like milky water, but when we're done, this will be a thicker paste resembling like mashed potatoes. If you've ever made eclairs or cream puffs, meaning you've made a choux dough, this is gonna bring back some memories for you. And very quickly, you can see I have a mashed potato-like paste. Remove from heat and now we can transfer this to the bowl of our stand mixer. We want this to cool so it's just barely warm. Don't wanna scald our yeast. So you can spread this out into a bit of a thinner layer and also get this off your spatula. It doesn't belong there anymore. Set this aside and we'll be right back. Once your paste is cooled, we can add our bread flour in. Two and 3 1⁄4 cups, that's 330 grams. Along with a 1⁄4 cup of sugar, that's 50 grams. This sugar is not gonna make the bread sweet as much as it's gonna make it soft. It really helps the texture of the bread be pillowy soft. A teaspoon of salt for contrast. One packet of instant yeast or 2 1⁄4 teaspoons. One, two, and a quarter. Half a cup of warm milk. This is around 105 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. And for some additional structure, one large egg. And richness and protein. Now with your rubber spatula, we're gonna scrape the bottom and give it a mix until we have a nice shaggy dough. It's not gonna come together. There will be no beautiful silky structure. It's just gonna be mostly mixed together. There we go. Milk bread's a Japanese recipe. It has such a delicate texture. You'll find it used in very interesting ways, including one of my favorites, which is in one of my cookbooks, which is a milk bread that's been cut into beautiful cubes and toasted with honey butter. Ah, it's so nice. It makes the most delicate sandwiches. And once you have some, you're gonna understand why just a little bit of extra work is so worth it. I have a very shaggy, somewhat funky dough right now. So we're gonna put our stand mixer to work. Pop your bowl in and add your dough hook. We're gonna mix on low for five minutes and you're gonna see quite a difference. During this five minutes, you're looking for the dough to ball up around the hook. And in the meantime, just make sure you have three tablespoons of butter that's nice and softened. So microwave at half power in 10 second increments if it's coming straight from the fridge. After five minutes, you can see our dough is all balled up and it has significantly more structure, but it's definitely not there. Should not be sticking to my fingers and it should not be breaking this easily. I really shouldn't have done it. Wheel, it's all for you. I'm just gonna work it off of the hook as it's quite attached. Now we're gonna mix for an additional five minutes on low, adding a little bit of our three tablespoons of room temperature softened butter at a time. So take a little daub, plop it on there to get started and get to mixing. Five more minutes. Just let the first piece of butter incorporate fully before adding the next. I'm just stopping the mixer and adding it on like this as we go. If you wanted to, you could drop it in. And I would keep minding the hook and pulling the dough down. That's what I would do. So I mentioned earlier milk bread is Japanese, also known as shokupan. My pronunciation is horrible, but Japanese bakers used American ingredients after World War II and came up with this amazing recipe. And in general, when you go to a Japanese bakery, you expect the textures just to be so delicate. And this is one of the recipes that has that nice delicacy. Little more butter. Oh, dear. Little more mixing. Little more butter. Little more mixing. And by the way, if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button. There's two new recipes every week. Okay, more butter. Actually, I'm just gonna add the rest in. Continue mixing. I've taken a full five minutes to mix in all the butter bit by bit. I'm gonna let the mixer keep running for an additional five minutes. The dough should look cohesive and be balled around the hook for the most part. I'll show you what that looks like though. After an additional five minutes, look what we have here. It's so much softer. More stretch. And it's not sticking to my clean fingers. It's as tacky. Remove it from the dough hook. Lightly oil a large bowl. Spread that up the side of the bowl. We're gonna transfer our dough now into our oiled bowl. Just flip it around so it's all lubricated all over. We don't want it to dry out. And now you can cover this either with plastic or a damp towel. It'll rise for 40 to 50 minutes or until doubled in size. Just place it in a nice warm spot. After about 50 minutes, my dough has doubled in size. So I wanna lightly oil my countertop. I'm just gonna take some of the oil from the bowl because I do not need a lot. Punch the dough down. And now it can get transferred onto your counter. Divide your dough into three equal pieces. Now working one at a time, you're gonna stretch each piece into a 10 by six inch rectangle. It'll be about a quarter of an inch thick. You can stretch and pull and press. Six by 10, there we go. Fold each of the long sides into the center so they meet in the middle. Pinch the seam where the two sides meet. At this point, you wanna check in with your pan. You're either using a loaf pan or a Pullman pan, which has a top and will give you that perfect rectangular prism shape for your milk bread. It also has three holes in the bottom so air can escape. While I'm at it, give it a quick grease. If you don't have a Pullman pan, you can make this in a nine by five. It'll just be a traditional loaf shape of bread. We grabbed our pan because we're gonna stretch and pull this piece so it's the width of the pan. So stretch and pull it wider. Almost there, okay. Now that it's the appropriate width, start with the narrow end closest to you and just roll it up. What we're doing here is creating structure for the dough. Okay, that's one roll. I'm gonna set this aside and repeat that process again. Press and stretch your piece of dough into a six by 10 inch rectangle. It really helps to have measuring tape. Grab each of the long sides and fold them towards the center. Pinch together and then you're going to stretch and press this to be the width of your pan. We're gonna make three rolls that go together. They'll rise together and make a really cute segmented bread. Okay, then roll that up. Don't roll it too tightly. It's gonna want some room to breathe. And repeat that process one last time. This is so simple but it's the kind of step that really looks confusing to so many people when you read it in a recipe. This sort of thing is one of the main reasons I started the Preppy Kitchen YouTube channel because I was writing recipes and I got a lot of user questions. And as a teacher, I totally understood why the recipe would be confusing, even if you wrote it really clearly. Some people are just visual learners. I started the YouTube channel so we would have visuals to make things really easy and low stress. Now you're gonna place your beautiful little buttery logs side by side, seamed down in your loaf pan. And three. So cute. Cover this up with plastic or with a damp towel and let it rise in a cozy, draft, free space for about 30 to 40 minutes until it's doubled in size. 15 minutes into your proof time, preheat your oven to 350 Fahrenheit so it's ready to accept your beautiful shakopan. My milk bread has risen, it's looking puffier. We're gonna make a quick egg wash right now with one egg and I have a little bit of water in here just to break it up. But you could use milk if you'd like. It's about a tablespoon. Brush gently with your egg wash. Just brush all over the surface. Be nice and gentle so you don't disturb your bread. If you're using a Pullman loaf, now you will cover your bread up. And now your shakopan is ready to go into the oven, 32 to 35 minutes or until it's golden brown. You'll let it cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely so it doesn't steam up. In you go. Out of the oven and this looks so cute. I love the spirals on the side. I know that has nothing to do with the flavor but it just is like the cutest, softest bread. And it smells amazing too. What it should be called is cloud bread because cloud bread is actually nasty. That's a misnomer. This is the delicious stuff. Enjoy this toasted or plain, sliced or torn, any way you cut it or don't. This is gonna be delicious. Mm. This and sourdough bread are what I want to be eating. They're so delicious in different ways. Soft, ever so slightly sweet, and I don't know, it's just like, it's like bread plus. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe and if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button and check out my bread playlist.