Monday 28 March 2016

BM milk loaf


Ever since I received a preloved Zojirushi bread machine, I have been baking homemade bread regularly. The bread machine is very compact and as it doesn't take up too much space I have left it permanently at the corner of the kitchen counter. With it so visibly in sight, I am constantly reminded to bake a loaf of bread every other day.



I have lost count of the number of times I have baked this milk loaf. As long as there is fresh milk in the fridge, this is the bread to make. The recipe is from a bread machine cookbook by a Japanese author (荻山和也╳cuoca用麵包機烘焙專業級麵包) and I will be trying out a few other recipes soon.



This milk loaf recipe uses the most basic ingredients: bread flour, milk, sugar, butter, salt and yeast. It has a very high liquid to flour ratio, at 80%. That is, for 500g of flour, it will need 400g of milk. The usual liquid to flour ratio for most handmade bread ranges from 60% to 70%. The dough is quite wet and at first I thought it may not even come together to form a dough. After the kneading cycle which is about 20mins for my bread machine, the ingredients came together and a slack and sticky dough was formed. Nevertheless, it survived the next three cycles of rising with two auto stir down (or the common term 'punch down' by the kneading blade) in between. The dough became smooth and rose well before the machine went into the baking cycle.



After 3.30 hours, I was rewarded with a beautiful and tall loaf of bread. The crust was thin and evenly browned.



The texture of this bread is very soft and fluffy. The bread stays soft for 2 days (kept in air tight container) but I am not sure whether it would remain soft for 3 days as my family finishes the loaf within 2 days. The texture is slightly different from bread loaf made with tangzhong method. This one using straight dough method doesn't have the slight chewy texture as compared to the tangzhong method.



I have also tried using the bread machine's "dough function" to just knead and proof the dough but used the oven to bake the bread. With the exact same amount of ingredients, the dough was able to fill up my pullman tin. With only 20 mins of kneading by the bread maker, the dough was not able to reach the window pane stage. However, to my delight, the texture of the finished pullman loaf was just as good!



The bread tastes good with just the right sweetness. It can be eaten plain on its own especially when freshly baked. Besides the bread machine wholemeal loaf, this is another regular everyday bread which we won't get tired of having it for breakfast everyday!




Bread Machine Milk Loaf

Ingredients:

(makes 450g/1 lb loaf)

200g milk (I used full cream fresh milk)
250g bread flour (I used Prima brand unbleached bread flour)
20g caster sugar
20g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
3g salt
3g instant yeast

Method:
  • Place milk, bread flour, sugar, salt, butter in the pan of the bread machine (according to the sequence as stated in the instruction manual of your bread machine). Make an indentation on the flour with your finger and add in the instant yeast. Select the Basic or Regular function of the bread machine. Select Light crust function and press start.  (Note: due to our hot weather, I use cold milk from the fridge.)
  • When the cycle completes, lift the pan out of the machine and carefully shake the loaf out of the pan. Leave the loaf to cool for at least an hour before cutting and remove the blade/paddle, if necessary. Store in airtight container.
Recipe source: 荻山和也╳cuoca用麵包機烘焙專業級麵包

34 comments:

Tina said...

I never try to bake a bread before and I always wanted to try one day. Thanks for the recipe

Kimmy said...

Hi HHB, you milk loaves look so good. It's always so good to have home-baked breads. Happy bread making.

Happy Homebaker said...

Thanks Kimmy!

Juli said...

Hi, thanks for the recipe. I tried making it and it was very soft.
Do you mind sharing the title of the recipe book. Thanks

jennai said...

That looks so good and healthy

The Experimental Cook said...

I made this today using your recipe. Yummy!

Happy Homebaker said...

Glad to hear that the recipe works well for you too!

Caroline said...

Hi HHB.
I've not used my bread machine, the same as yours, for months now. But the pics of your milk loaf looks so tempting, I can't wait to take my machine out and try your recipe!
I would like to know if you are able to remove the blade before the baking begins and how?
Thanks ... and wishing you many more happy bakes!

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Caroline, may I ask what's your intention to remove the blade before the baking begins? Technically it can be done, but if you were to touch the dough just before baking, the dough would probably collapse as the air trapped in the dough could be released. However, you can remove the blade right after the kneading has stopped before the dough starts to rise. Just take out the dough and remove the blade. However, after the first and 2nd rise, the blade will turn to knock down/or stir down the dough a bit. If you were to remove the blade, this will not be possible and the resulting dough may not be very smooth and the finished loaf may not have a nice smooth top/shape. I would only recommend to remove the blade if you plan to make other shapes or patterns when you don't want the blade to turn to affect the shape. Hope you get what I mean?

Caroline said...

Thank you for your reply. I just would like to have a nice freshly baked soft loaf of bread without the dent or hole at the bottom ��. Do understand what you mean ... Unless I can remove the blade just after the last kneading and before the last rise, it's best just to leave it in the machine, so as not to collapse the dough before it is baked ... ��

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Caroline, for this bread machine, the hole at the bottom is not too obvious, as the blade doesn't stick to the loaf, it only affects 1 to 2 slices. My previous machine caused a much bigger hole as I had to dig out the blade from the loaf ; p

Unknown said...

Hi Happy Homebaker

Thank you for your wonderful recipe. It looks so good and I can't wait to try it. However, I do not have a bread machine. I have a Bosch stand mixer. In this case, can you kindly advise how many times should I proof the bread and how long should each proofing be. At the same time, can you also advise on the timing and the temperature of the oven for baking the dough, please? Thank you very much.

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Christine, you may refer to this post:
http://happyhomebaking.blogspot.sg/2013/10/easy-does-it.html
for a bread loaf which I made using a Bosch stand mixer. The method is similar. You can bake at 180-190deg C for about 30mins. Hope this helps.

Unknown said...

Hi Happy Homemaker

Thank you so much for replying despite of your busy schedule. Appreciate it. I read your link and it definitely help!! I can't wait to try it out. Thank you again for your recipe and your advice!! :)

Unknown said...

Looks great

Anonymous said...

HI HHB, You mentioned that after 20mins of kneading in yr BM, the dough did not reach window pane. In this case, did you knead further or did you take took out the dough and put into your Pullman tin to proof and bake?

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi, I didn't knead the dough further. I left it in the bm to complete the dough cycle, that is, knead plus 1st proof. Thereafter I took out the dough, shaped and left it to proof the second time in the pullman tin and bake.

ML said...

Hi,HHB,

I just baked this bread loaf this afternoon. Tasty bread indeed! And I've finally figured out to use 2g instant yeast instead for my BB-HAQ10 BM. Thanks for sharing this recipe! :)

Best regards,
ML

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi ML, great to hear that you have found the right amount that works for your bm!

xynoxis said...

Hi tried the BM recipe, 3G yeast last to add, but my bread is a short bread, it didn't rise. Any idea what could have gone wrong?

Anonymous said...

Hi, did you have any problems with other bm recipes using the same yeast? Did you use instant yeast?

xynoxis said...

Yes instant yeast. So far I hav tried other recipes and all didn't collapse. I have poured yeast down without digging a hole in the mixture, like what I have done in other recipes. Could it be I didn't add salt? I reckon using salted butter so didn't add salt. The final bread does have holes in them.

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Le Lim, you mentioned in your earlier comment that the dough did not rise and it was a short bread. However, your second comment you mentioned that the bread collapsed. May I ask what actually happened to the dough? Did it rise but upon baking it collapsed? Was the dough overproofed?
You may want to read up on purpose if salt in bread making. What I have learned is, salt has a retarding effect on the activity of the yeast. It helps to prevent dough from overproofing. If dough is overproofed, it may collapse.
Not sure what you meant by the holes in the bread?

Unknown said...

I wish I could show you the picture of the bread that I made using the Zojirushi BB-HAQ10, the top crust broke open from 1 side, the whole piece of top crust is still in tact though, it's just that from the side it broke open like for about 2cm. I followed strictly the instructions in the operation manual. When I saw the picture of the bread you made using Zojirushi BM it looks perfect, with the crust covering the whole body of the bread loaf.

Have you experienced it before, and is it normal? This is my 1st BM and I have only done 2 bread loaves, both of them turned out like that, only torn apart from different side :( Could it be the brand of the bread flour ?

I'm gonna try it some more, anyway, I too have 2 active boys at home who get hungry real quick so luckily they won't mind how the bread looks like and I am gonna make plenty of basic white bread at home to feed their demand.

Your blog has been very helpful, honestly I purposely followed suit in buying the same brand of bread maker [hehe...]

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Chloe, I am not sure what went wrong. I have been using this recipe for countless times and so far I have not encountered any problems. Did you measure the ingredients correctly? What type of yeast did you use? How was the dough, was it smooth and rise well before the baking cycle started? Was it over proofed? Did it collapse?

Anonymous said...

Hi Happy homebaker, thank you again for this recipe. I don't have a bread maker so I used the stand mixer to knead the dough. The bread is really soft and so yummy I can eat it on its own without jam or butter. May I know if you have tried replacing water with milk? I wonder if that will make the bread even more fragrant.
Cheers,
Butterfingers

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Butterfingers, great to hear that this recipe works well with stand mixer. However, I am not sure whether you are referring to the right recipe as this one uses milk not water.

Anonymous said...

Hi HHB, sorry! I made a mistake:) I wanted to ask about replacing water with milk in the BM wholemeal loaf haha. I left the comment in the wrong post. I've also tried this Bm milk loaf recipe twice. It's super soft too! These 2 recipes are excellent. Thank you!

Cheers,
Butterfingers

Anonymous said...

Hi HHB,
I baked this recipe for 3 times, first time with panasonic bread machine and it success ( i used bread flour). The next baked with others brand bread machine and it collapsed
( it rised well before baking cycle started) . Could it because i used all purpose flour?

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi, you will need to use bread flour.

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for this recipe. Its delicious. I am a bread lover and I am so glad I found you. Will definitely try many more of your recipes.

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Cathy, great to hear that your bread turns out well, happy baking!

Jessica A said...

Just made this by handkneading. Hopefully it works out well.

Blue Oak said...

Your bread is the best in the world! I baked it at my home and I am very impressed. I hope you post more such delicious recipes for us. Greetings :)