Courtesy of hubby, we welcome a new “toy” in our kitchen last week, a kitchen aid mixer. It was a highlight of 2016 so far, apart from me getting older 🙂 I love making and eating bread, and I have shared few recipes that worked for me over few posts here. So, of course we made bread using the tangzhong method that is well-known to produce milky soft bread. Previously, I kneaded the dough by hands and it took a while to achieve the smooth elastic consistency mainly because the recipe calls for slightly more liquid ingredient (in this case, milk) than other bread recipes which makes the dough very sticky. But, the end result really pays off those hard work and it is incredibly satisfying when your house smells like bakery ლ(´ڡ`ლ) The milk bread recipe is very versatile, you can bake it plain or with filling.  And this time, we made the milk bread loaf with peanut butter and chocolate rices – delicious!
This recipe below is exactly the same as on Menaka’s blog, the notes in Italic are the differences on my version:
- 300 grams bread flour
- 30Â grams sugar (I used 36 grams)
- 8 grams instant dry yeast
- 25 grams milk powder
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg, lightly whisked (I set aside about 1 tablespoon of this egg for egg wash later)
- 50 grams thickened cream
- Water Roux/ Tangzhong made from: 20 grams of bread flour and 1/2 cup of water
- Egg wash: 1 tablespoon of the lightly whisked egg mixed with 1 tablespoon of milk
Cook the roux ingredients and leave in fridge for several hours or over night.
Add the bread flour, roux, sugar, milk powder, yeast, salt, egg and whipping cream in to a mixing bowl and start kneading adding the milk little by little. Do not add all the milk at once as the it will vary on the size of the egg that you are using.
Keep on kneading for about 15 min (I kneaded for over 20 minutes until the dough forms a ball in the mixer dough hook)
After kneading, put the dough on to the bench and and keep kneading another 2 min.
Put the dough in a greased bowl and leave in a warm place until double in size.
Take the dough and put that on to a floured bench and divide in to 4 equal parts (I divided mine into 8 pieces)
Put the dough in to a loaf pan to double in size again.
Brush the tops with egg wash and bake on 180C about 40 to 45 min. (Use the lower rack to bake bread if not using fan bake). Mine took about 25 minutes to golden brown, but notice I divided mine into 8 smaller pieces than the original recipe
Cool on a wire rack.
Once it is out of oven, brush the tops and sides of the bread loaf with butter
I’d say Kitchen Aid helps a lot in the kneading process, it probably did 80% of the job for this recipe. I guess depends on which recipe you are using, the mixer might even do all the kneading process for you. There are many bread recipes I noted on Menaka’s blog that really intrigue me, so you may see more bread related posts here!