Breadmaking Day

This morning I cooked breakfast and I told Vince . . I’m not planning on cooking anything else today. He said “We’re almost out of bread!” He had told me that yesterday and I told him I’d make bread “tomorrow” and forgot so I asked what kind of bread he wanted and, in typical Vince fashion, he said “Whatever you feel like making!”

We haven’t had English Muffin Bread so I made that. It’s a great bread for everything – sandwiches, toast, French toast and it’s super easy to make. That’s a close to perfect loaf! the little crack at the top of the sides tells me I could have let it rise longer before baking but . . that’s ok. It’s not for show!

I made half the English Muffin Bread recipe so it made one loaf because while trying to decide what bread I should make, I remembered that a friend and I had been talking about Japanese Milk Bread. I had never heard of it and certainly never tasted it. There are lots of recipes, all fairly similar, and there’s lots of info on Japanese Milk Bread. I haven’t read it all but find it very interesting and I do want to read more about it.

This is the recipe I used and the writer includes quite a bit of info about the bread and the background.

The things I did differently:

• Bread Flour – I did not have bread flour. I used hard white wheat to make flour, using the finest setting on the KoMo Classic mill. I then sifted the flour. Of course, I cannot compare what I made to a loaf that has been made following the instructions exactly but I’m impressed with my bread. I doubt I buy bread flour . . I just don’t need something else to keep around here.
• Dough Enhancer – I don’t have it and thought about ordering it but it’s a bit expensive. I found this recipe for making your own. I have all the ingredients so I’ll make some and try it next time and see if it makes any difference.
• Japanese Shokupan (pullman pan) – I didn’t have one and apparently, short of ordering one from Japan, I’ll never have one so I opted to use a cast iron pan.

This is not the recipe I used but this one has lots of information about the process.

As far as the pan goes, a Shokupan bread pan is basically a Pullman pan with higher sides. Most Pullman pans have sides that are 4.1 – 4.3″ tall where the Shokupan has sides that are over 5″ tall. I do have Pullman pans and since this recipe makes two loaves, the next time I make it, I may put one in a Shokupan and one in a cast iron just to see the difference. Apparently, with the lid on, more moisture stays in the bread and creates a different (better?) texture.

There was, for me, a new way to create the shape of the loaf and I had fun playing with the dough.

I should have taken a picture of the side view of the loaf after it’s baked. The swirls are visible and they make the bread look a bit artsy.

I used my regular (old) Kitchen Aid with the dough hook and it wasn’t accomplishing much so I ended up kneading by hand. Later I read that others have had the same issue and were able to knead it with some of the professional type Kitchen Aid mixers. I prefer to knead by hand . . I can feel the dough and know what it needs. Also, since I hadn’t used bread flour and since my milk was whole raw milk with a lot of cream in it, I wasn’t sure if I needed to add more liquid. I did add a bit more water.

The photo below shows the texture of the two different loaves/types of bread.

The English Muffin Bread is on the right and the Japanese Milk Bread is on the left.

The Japanese Milk Bread may be my new favorite bread.