Hubby's sick so it's a quiet weekend spent at home, no eating out (pity to have missed the Annual Food Bloggers dinner but oh well, family comes first). Anyway, thought I'd bake something nice and easy to eat. The Hokkaido Milk Loaf has apparently been the rage of baking bloggers some time ago, and I only recently stumbled across the various recipes. The original bread is made with premium Hokkaido milk but regular milk does just fine (I used Meiji full cream milk, one of my favourites).
Everyone in the family is quite pleased with the results. Fragrant bread that's cottony soft, with melt-in-your-mouth, can't-stop-at-one-slice deliciousness! Extra good when fresh out of the oven. Oh I am hooked!
There are quite a few blogs on this - I first saw it on "Do What I Like" (a gorgeous HK blog with pics and recipes), then at Happy Home Baking, but she uses a bread machine which I don't have. My Kitchen My Lab has a black-sesame-seed infused version.
I followed Angie's recipe (the one most blogs seem to quote as source) but made the bread by hand - I don't have an electric mixer either! But hey, it's still easy (just knead for 8-10 mins) and the results were better than I could have dreamed of.
Experiment with different fillings - cheddar, ham and cranberries, originally uploaded by Camemberu.
Angie's recipe did call for dividing the dough into four portions (you roll up each like a swiss roll for its final rise), so I took the opportunity to try out different fillings in each portion - cheese, ham and cranberries respectively (one section left plain). Since this was the first time, I didn't dare put in too much lest I overload the dough and it collapses or something, but next time I'll put in more! Ah if this baking thing continues, I'm going to become a carbo fatty!
Wow, the bread looks really fluffy and light. Oh no.. so many things to try. lol
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking your site to my blog. =)
Looks really good...but am too lazy to bake ahhaha!
ReplyDeletehi there! This looks great, now I've an idea to make burger buns and they look perfectly soft and fluffy for that. So this is how Bread Talk makes their cheese bread, I always wondered!
ReplyDeleteHiya Daffy, lemme know how the burger buns work out.
ReplyDeleteIt's really the thick/heavy cream that makes the bread soft, I think. I had to make my second batch with less cream (hubby secretly chugged like half my supply) and the bread turned out more coarse and less fluffy.
The bread looks good. Can I have the recipes for the sweet soft bread like those in Breadtalk?
ReplyDeleteThank you
George
Hey There!
ReplyDeleteI tried making the bread by hand. But it did not rise! :( Any tips? Did you mi the yeast with the milk first or did you just add all the ingredients together?
Hi Lula, I'm not sure why your dough didn't rise - normally this is because the yeast is old or expired. I think I basically added everything together, because I used instant yeast. I'll try this recipe soon again, now that I have a mixer!
ReplyDeleteIs it as soft as the bread at Provence? Been looking for the ultimate Japanese bread recipe.
ReplyDeleteYes, Leslie, it is! In fact, it's even softer when it's fresh out of the oven! Try it, try it!
ReplyDeleteThe trouble with baking is, there are so many factors to get precisely right. But this recipe has been quite forgiving so far.