Shokupan (Japanese Milk Bread)

Ingredients

• 250 g wheat flour
• 5 tbsp milk, plus extra for brushing
• 3 tbsp water, lukewarm
• 1⅓ tbsp heavy cream
• 1 egg
• 30 g white sugar
• 1½ tsp dry yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 25 g butter, softened and cubed

Method

1. 1.

   Cook the tangzhong paste — Whisk 15 g of the flour into the milk in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens into a smooth paste that holds the trail of the whisk, about 2 minutes. Scrape into a bowl, press cling film onto the surface and leave to cool to lukewarm.

2. 2.

   Mix and knead the dough — Mix the remaining flour with the sugar, yeast and salt in a large bowl, then add the cooled paste, the water, the cream and the egg. Bring it together into a shaggy dough and knead for 10 minutes; it stays sticky at first and must not be floured.

3. 3.

   Work in the butter — Work in the softened butter a cube at a time — the dough will fall apart and come back together — then knead a further 10-12 minutes until it turns satiny and a piece stretched between your fingers goes thin enough to see light through without tearing.

4. 4.

   Prove until doubled — Shape the dough into a ball, put it in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave somewhere warm for about 75 minutes, until doubled and a finger poked into it leaves a dent that fills back only halfway.

5. 5.

   Shape the spirals and prove — Knock the dough back and divide it into three. Roll each piece into a 20 cm oval, fold the long sides into the middle and roll it up tightly from the short end, then sit the three spirals side by side in a buttered 20 x 10 cm loaf tin. Cover and prove for 55 minutes, until the domes come to 1 cm below the rim.

6. 6.

   Bake the loaf — Brush the tops with a little milk and bake at 180°C for 30-32 minutes, tenting with foil as soon as the crust is deep gold. For the classic square-topped loaf, slide the lid onto a pullman tin before it goes in and skip the brushing.

7. 7.

   Cool before slicing — Turn the loaf out of the tin straight away and cool it on a rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing — cut while hot, the feathery crumb drags and compresses under the knife.