Milk Bread

I started baking my own bread during pandemic in 2020. I found a simple sandwich bread recipe and have used that numerous time. I even posted that on my fridge for easy reference. But I realized that the bread doesn't stay fresh and soft too long. It's wonderful on the day it's baked but after the following day it's pretty much stale and dry.

One time I tried using a bit brown rice flour in my bread recipe. And it's not good. The following day the bread was very crumbly. So crumbly I couldn't even put it in the toaster !😒

The past weekend all of a sudden I just thought of milk bread. Ah, yes hubby showed me this video of garlicky egg sandwich made with thick cut bread. It looked yummy. So I was inspired to make soft bread and I started looking for a recipe. This is the recipe I found and tried. Thanks to Dini from The Flavor Bender for this wonderful recipe. The recipe shown below is the adapted version with less sugar and no salt.

Tangzhong or Water Roux

One thing that makes milk bread recipe different from traditional sandwich bread recipe is the used of tangzhong or water roux. This water roux will sealed in the moisture and the bread will be softer longer. My loaf was a bit dry the following day but once heated up on toaster it's all good again. The same bread I tried it again on the third day and it's nice and soft after it got toasted lightly.

All Purpose Flour

The original recipe called for bread flour. But I just bought a bag of all purpose flour so I didn't want to buy another bag of bread flour. And the result was still very nice.

I may try bread flour in the future just to see if there's any difference.

Hand Kneading

I don't have a stand up mixer to mix my dough so I can only give review to this recipe based on my experience of hand kneading it. The dough will be sticky and soft. Once kneaded enough, it will be a soft lump and not as sticky anymore.

Do not add more flour to the dough.

Ingredients

Tangzhong or water roux :

1/4 cup (60 ml) water 

1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

23 gram all purpose flour

Milk bread :

tangzhong at room temperature

1/2 cup (120 ml) warm milk

2-2 1/4 ts yeast

1 tbs honey

2 tbs dry milk powder

1 egg

350 gram all purpose flour

1/2 stick butter (58 gram) - room temperature

Method :

Tangzhong or water roux :

Mix water, milk and flour in a saucepan. Make sure the ingredients are well combined and not lumped up. 

Turn on medium low heat. Use a whisker to slowly stir the mixture. Once the mixture starts to thicken, turn the heat to low. 

Stir some more until the consistency is like a thick paste and turn off the heat. Let it cool off to room temperature before using.

You can make this ahead and cover up with a shrink wrap close to the surface to prevent a skin from forming.

Milk bread :

Heat up the milk in the microwave until a thermometer reading on the milk is around 100℉ (37.8℃). Another indicator is, it should feel warm to touch but not scalding hot.

Put in honey and yeast in the warm milk. Stir until yeast is dissolved. Set aside for about 10 minutes or until the yeast mixture has risen.

Meanwhile put the flour and milk powder in a mixing bowl. Once the yeast mixture is ready. Cracked the egg in the middle of the dry ingredients. Then pour in the yeast mixture and the tangzhong. Use a spatula to stir the mixture until it forms a soft dough. 

Use your hand to knead this soft dough and pick up any loose flour from the bowl. Then empty this dough onto a clean surface to work on. Start kneading this dough while mixing the soft butter a bit at a time.

You want to knead the dough until it's smooth and no longer sticking to the surface. I think it's about 15 minutes. In the beginning the dough was sticky but it's becoming less sticky after a few round of kneading. 

Shape the dough into a nice round ball and place into an oiled bowl for first proofing. Depends on the temperature, this could be between 45 minutes to 1.5 hours. Or you could let it proof overnight in the fridge.

You can bake this in a loaf pan or make it into dinner rolls. Let it proof the second time before brushing it with milk wash or egg wash. Bake in a preheated oven of 350℉ (180℃) for 20-30 minutes for bread rolls and 30-35 minutes for bread loaf.

If you have a thermometer, bake until a thermometer inserted shows internal temperature of 190-205℉ (88-96℃).