Sweet and soft Japanese milk Bread, Tangzhong milk bread
Extremely soft and pillowy Japanese hokkaido style milk Bread recipe using tangzhong technique popularly known as 65°C recipe water roux method by Yvonne Chen , bread doctor.
Baking bread is therapeutic. These are the simple pleasures of life to be grateful for. It was a revelation when I found about tangzhong or the water roux technique for making soft and pillowy bread. I first read about this a few years ago in the fresh loaf forum and I was thrilled. A lady by name Yvonne Chen wrote about this technique in her “65°C – Bread Doctor” book referring to tangzhong (water roux) as her secret ingredient. The forum went crazy for tangzhong and so did I.
So what is tangzhong?
A simple water flour roux is made by heating water and flour where the starch in the flour gelatinizes. Adding this flour-water roux to the dough results in an unbelievably moist fluffy bread. Tangzhong adds structure to the inside crumb of the bread.
Lets go make Japanese style Hokkaido Bread AKA Ultimate soft and sweet bread. Its bread time y’all!
First lets make tangzhong. Mix the water and flour until its lump free. Make sure that the flour is completely mixed before heating up. Heat it on medium flame until it starts to become a watery custard/pudding like the picture below. Remove from heat immediately once its like a pudding consistency.
Second lets get the yeast working. Indian yeast is temperamental. so do not skip this step if you are in India. Add quarter cup of warm water plus a pinch of sugar to the yeast and leave it aside for 5 minutes so it becomes foamy. If it doesn’t foam, discard and start again with a fresh batch of yeast.
Mix the dry ingredients and whisk till combined – flour, sugar, milk powder, salt, lemon zest and orange zest. In a separate bowl mix together Milk, eggs, vanilla, all of the tangzhong, butter, and all of the yeast mixture. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and start kneading. Knead for 5 minutes on medium speed on a stand mixer. If kneading by hand, knead for a good 10 minutes. The trick in kneading by hand is to avoid the temptation of adding flour. Too much flour alters the moisture content which results in dry dense dough. Once the dough becomes cohesive, form into a ball and let it rise in a draft free place until doubled. About 60 to 90 minutes.
Once doubled, Shape the dough. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. each piece, roll the dough out into an oval. Fold the oval,crimp and then flatten. Roll the dough up lengthwise, then place into the loaf pan seam side down. Do the same for remaining 3 dough pieces. Cover it and let it double again. About 60 to 90 minutes.
Coat the dough with egg wash and bake in a preheated oven at 180C/350F for 40 minutes. When it’s done, the bread will sound hollow when tapped. Let it cool briefly, then slice and enjoy!
- ½ cup water
- ¼ cup + 1 Tablespoon all purpose flour
- ¼ cup water
- 2 teaspoon yeast
- pinch of sugar
- 400grams (around 2.5-3 cups) all purpose flour
- ¼ cup sugar
- 25g (1/4 cup) milk powder
- 6 tablespoon milk
- 1 egg
- 2 Tablespoon butter
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)
- 1 teaspoon orange zest (optional)
- 1 more egg, beaten with a splash of water, for eggwash
- Mix the water and flour and heat it on medium flame until it starts to become a watery custard or tangzhong.
- Add warm water plus a pinch of sugar to the yeast and leave it aside for 5 minutes so it becomes foamy.
- Mix the dry ingredients and whisk till combined – flour, sugar, milk powder, salt, lemon zest and orange zest.
- In a separate bowl mix together Milk, eggs, vanilla, all of the tangzhong, butter, and all of the yeast mixture.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and start kneading. Knead for 5 minutes on medium speed on a stand mixer. If kneading by hand, knead for a good 10 minutes. Let it rise in a draft free place until doubled. About 60 to 90 minutes.
- Once doubled, Shape the dough. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. each piece, roll the dough out into an oval. Fold the oval, crimp and then flatten. Roll the dough up lengthwise, then place into the loaf pan. Do the same for remaining 3 dough pieces. Cover it and let it double again.
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
- Coat the dough with egg wash and bake in a preheated oven at 180C/350F for 40 minutes. When it’s done, the bread will sound hollow when tapped.
Perfect recipe!Tried it just this morning.Made pav buns for pav bhaji following the above recipe step by step and what did I get…the best buns ever:)
Have bookmarked this recipe!
Will try with whole wheat flour and without eggs and will share my comments.
Thank you!
Hi Suguna,
Is there any guide for your measurements to use? for eg: if using Flour, how much is 1cup & if using liquid how much is 1cup? so for all the receipes are you using the same measurements for cups?
These are standard measuring cups you can get in the market
1 cup = 240 ml
1 tablespoon = 15ml
1 teaspoon = 5ml
Thanks so much, could you also pls confirm for grams in terms of 1cup?
Sorry got it..
Hai kannamma,i had tried it by hand…its very sticky,i m unable to knead… how to knead it with hand?
It will be sticky at the beginning. As you knead, the gluten in the dough will develop and will come as one cohesive dough. But it will be extremely sticky and kneading by hand becomes easy by practice.
Hi thanx for d bread recepe.kndly let me know d egg substitute in yr above bread.eagerlywaiting to try it.
Will appreciate if u could email to me. Thanx
Hi sanguta jain, I have never tried this recipe without egg. Sorry about that.
Hi Kannamma, Tried this recipe of Japanese Milk Bread. Firstly, thanks for this easy recipe! I have tried many breads earlier but this turned out to be much better but not as expected. My first error was in tangzhong where the mixture lumped very fast and had to blitz it to remove the lumps! The kneading of dough with hand was really sticky. As mentioned I didnt tempt to add more flour. The yeast, rising and proving to double was excellent. While baking, the aroma of bread was awesome. I found the top half to be quite porous but bottom part was dense. Just want to understand the reason where I cud have gone wrong.
Mix the water and flour until its lump free. Make sure that the flour is completely mixed before heating up. If this step is ignored, then the chance of flour lumping up is more.
The bottom part being dense may be because of two reasons.
# insufficient proofing – The second stage, the dough needs more time to bulk up
# more kneading required to strengthen gluten
Can wo do this without egg
A reader substituted 1/4 cup more water for egg and she had good results.
Hi…
I tried this with all purpous flour once…it was awesome…to make it more healthier shall i follow the same recipe with wheat flour…
Thanks in advance…
You might have to alter the water content and add some vital gluten to get soft bread with wheat flour.
Very nice your blog! I did this bread with water no milk no egg and it works beautifully each time also for making buns soft and plenty of flavour. Thnks from Italy
Thank you so much Anna. Thanks for taking time to write to me. Really glad that you liked the recipe.
Did you use same amount of water in place of milk? Did you add more liquid to replace eggs?
Hi .I have just discovered your blog and it’s awesome. I’m an amatuer baking enthusiast.. And HV spoilt many a bread with dry yeast.I have now found instant yeast as my solace…do u think tangzhong method will b a good idea with instant yeast.pls guide.
Thank you, regards, Divya.
Yes Divya. I have tried it with instant yeast and the recipe works.
Hi, the bread looks delicious and badly want to try this. But I’m allergic to egg. Is there anything I can substitute for the egg?
I have never tried this recipe without eggs. I doubt it.
Thks will gv it a try once more…
Hi i tyrd the above recipe followed to the T…but my dough ws hard not soft.. as a result it did not rise even after 3hrs, though my yeast too had proofed well…..i used 4oogms of maida…but the measuring cup i hv measures 1cup = 100gms. Culd u pls guide me as to where i went wrong…shld i hv taken 300gms of maida then…
A standard measuring cup is 250 ml Mohini. I think u went wrong in measurements.
Thks Suguna…. one more query pls….after kneading the dough should it b greased before u leave it to rise.
Not necessary Mohini!
Hi Suguna! wuld love to try out the above bread recipe…just a query, since i hv instant dry yeast which looks like very fine granules(like kuskus)…shld i use same proportion as mentioned in recipe i.e. 2tsp…pls guide. Thks!
The same quantity will work Mohini!
Hi,I tried few recipes of urs this week .. Brilliant results every time This milk bread was the first one I tried and it turned out great. Then your banana bread, couple of your biryani recipes and beetroot kola urundai too. Thank you for such fool proof recipes. Great website.kudos
Thank you so much Madhu!
🙂
Ah! Simple good old sweet buns… Would love to have one. This recipe looks quite interesting with all the new techniques of heating up the flour. Hmm, been wanting to try a hand on buns since a while- might give this a go soon.
Well done with the write up especially the printable page with all instructions look tidy. In fact it looks like a page from a cookbook 🙂
Good luck and save some buns for me If mine don’t turn up as pretty 😉
S xx
Thank you very much Sandy for your kind words.