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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Hokkaido Milk Bread


A boxy loaf at last

Wise men say it  is unwise  to bake  a humongous loaf just days before setting off for holiday. But irrationalness  ruled the day.  So here it is , my Hokkaido bread baked in my Pullman.

Instead of the artisan  look, I opted for 'clean lines'.  That is another tick on my to-do list : bake a really boxy bread (  yeah, I have strange ambitions ! )

This recipe fits the bill ;  a copious amount of flour to fill  up a full sized Pullman bread pan and the chance to get rid of the leftover whipping cream.  Everything went well except that my Math has gone to the dogs. I couldn't divide properly and ended up with 1 of the 4 rolled up  dough a tad smaller than the rest.  1/4 of the loaf  didn't fill up fully to the top, which makes it only a 75 % success rate for my effort .

Oh well ! I use a calculator the next time instead of relying on my half baked mental maths.

 Lily  deserves the credit for this recipe. Here goes :

Ingredients:
1 cup  milk ( room temperature )
5 fl oz whipping cream
1 large egg ( I used 2 egg whites )
1.5 tsp salt ( 1 used 1 T, which slows the fermentation! Oops! )
5 T sugar
3 T milk powder
4 cups bread flour
1/2 cup cake flour
3 t instant yeast

Method:

Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. In the bread machine, pour in milk, whipping cream and top off with dry ingredients. 

Use the dough function of the bread machine. The cycle takes 1.5 hours.

Remove risen dough from bread machine . Stretch dough and fold into thirds.

Divide it into 4 portions. Rest dough for 20 minutes, covered.

Grease a Pullman loaf pan. Roll up each dough. Place  rolls into  loaf pan.  Cover Pullman, leaving a tiny gap. Let the dough rise up to double, about 60 minutes.

Cover Pullman pan completely. Bake in a preheated 180 C oven for about 35-40 minutes. I baked mine for 37 minutes.

Cool pan and remove bread to cool completely before serving.
Mlk bread at attention!

Verdict : dough was workable and not wet as envisioned . The texture is reminiscent of bread from Toast Box. Due to the extra 1/2 t of pink salt used ( 1T instead of 1.5t), the taste and texture is  rather robust ( since salt binds water and retards fermentation ). A better bet would be 1 to 1.5 teaspoon of salt for a softer texture.

This post will be submitted to   Aspiring Bakers #8 ( Bread Seduction ) June 2011  hosted by Sweetylicious.
It's squeezzy down here

8 comments:

  1. hi (: the toast and melon pan look so soft and delicious! would like to invite you to join aspiring bakers (: have fun! (:

    http://thesweetylicious.blogspot.com/2011/06/aspiring-bakers-8-bread-seduction.htm

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  2. Sweetylicious,
    Thank you for your invitation.
    EC

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  3. Hi there, I've parked my Pullman aside for a while after 2 unsuccessful attempts. Yours looks awesome. Will come back here again when I get back my courage and energy for this lovely bread.

    EVC

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  4. Hi, what is the size of pullman tin used?

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  5. Thank you..hope I can have a boxy loaf this time. :)

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  6. is there any reason why you section it off into 4 pieces before you put it and and bake it? why can't you just form the dough into a log and use that?

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  7. bsq2phat,

    I am not good with words but let's see if you get what I mean :
    When you form the dough into a giant log to proof in the box, the middle will rise faster than the ends creating a dome. in the confined space of the box, the middle hits the box cover first while the ends have yet to rise to full height. This may compromise the density of the bread, the middle being more dense than the ends.
    By splitting to 4 logs, you even out the rise of the dough , ditto the density of the bread.

    But of course if there is an expert out there who thinks I worry too much, do drop me a note :)

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