Pork Floss Loaf with Cheese toppings

I was pleasantly surprised to receive comments from a blog visitor, MH, that she has been baking the milk loaf with great success. She had even tried adding pandan juice to the recipe. This prompted me that I should go ahead with the idea of turning it into a matcha green tea loaf...something which I had in mind for quite sometime. However, I realised that my boy, who happens to be my main target 'audience' may not like green tea in his bread. He will much prefer a pandan loaf, but I don't have any pandan essence or a blender to make the pandan juice. So I thought I should just fill the loaf with some pork floss since he always choose the pork floss buns whenever we get breads from the nearby bakery shop.


Having attempted to make a pullman bread using this recipe without much success (as it didn't reach the top of the tin), I decided that I should make a 'mountain-shape' loaf. I added some grated mozzarella cheese and some dried parsley on the top to add some flavour.


I used my bread machine to knead the dough so that I could use the time to prepare lunch. I set the machine to the Dough function, and let it knead for the fixed timing of 20mins. At the end of the cycle, I stopped the machine, re-started it and let it knead for another 20mins. The dough was still quite sticky after 40mins. I suspected either I have added a little too much egg or I would have over knead it. I guess, 30mins of kneading should be just right. Nevertheless, I left it to rise in room temperature and was very pleased to see that it had double in bulk within an hour.

After punching down the dough, I gave it a few kneading...but to my horror, the dough became sticky again! Since I have already gone to this stage, I went ahead and tried my best to flatten the dough with my fingers and topped the surface with pork floss. I had to use a spatula to help scrape the dough from the work surface and slowly rolled it up, swiss-roll style. I left it in my pullman tin, and let it proof for the second time. I was initially quite skeptical that this bread would ever rise, as the dough simply didn't look right. The surface wasn't smooth and was very blemish. I didn't even have the mood to take a photo of it! To my surprise, after an hour, it reach to the top of the tin looking as though it would burst through the cling wrap any time. This was despite the gloomy and cool weather yesterday. I remembered the other time the same dough took at least 2 hours to double in bulk during the second proofing.


I brushed the top with the left over egg (the recipe uses less than one egg), and covered it with grated cheese and send it into the oven. I knew for sure the top will get burnt, as such, when the cheese started to brown (within 10mins) I covered the top with foil and let it bake till the required time. I was so glad that the bread turned up so tall! This is the 'tallest' bread I have ever made. The top was overly brownish, but the sides were browned to a nice golden brown. As the cheese got stuck to the side of the tin, I had to use a knife to go around it to get the bread out of the pullman tin.


I hardly could wait to slice the bread to check on the inside. I must say this recipe is truly amazing! Thanks to the originator for sharing such a wonderful recipe. The bread was very airy, soft, and cottony! I tasted one slice while it was still warm....yummy!


The bread remain soft the next day, and I only kept it in a plastic bag. My boy told me the bread was very soft, and he even ate the crust too. He would usually leave behind a square rim of crust whenever he eats a sandwich loaf. My better half liked it too but told me to add more pork floss next time ;)

If you are keen to give this bread a try, I have got some tips here:

Tip 1: As the top of the loaf is rather soft, you may not want to dent it while removing it from the tin/loaf pan. So, when turning the bread out from the tin, place the tin on its side and slowly shake and ease the loaf out...do be careful of the hot tin!

Tip 2: Due to the cheese toppings, it was kind of difficult to slice through the top crust from the top, ie with the loaf standing upright. The crust was very thin, and I almost squashed the entire loaf ;p I learned that it is much easier to slice it by placing the loaf on it's side.

Hope this helps :)