Bread bakers - Have you heard of Japanese milk bread?

13 years ago

A while ago I came across a blog entry devoted to Japanese milk bread and was intrigued by the "water roux" method -- tangzhong. It's supposed to give the bread an incredibly soft & fluffy texture while improving its keeping qualities. The last few visits my daughter & her husband have brought us baked goods from a popular Japanese bakery near their home. The pastries all seem to be made with a very soft dough. Yesterday they also brought some bread. It, too, was very soft. As I was munching away, I remembered the milk bread recipe. I think the pastries & bread probably used a similar recipe.

Have any of you used a water roux before? Do you think it really makes a difference in achieving a super soft texture? The roux is created by mixing bread flour and water together and cooking it at gentle heat until it reaches 65 degrees. Supposedly, by adding it to the dough, the resulting bread or roll texture will be very moist and soft.

I'm just curious about the whole idea. Also, I'm wondering if the same technique could be used with whole wheat flour, especially the finely milled white whole wheat flour.

The link below shows several recipes from TasteSpotting. Here's a link to a fairly representative recipe: Japanese Milk Bread

Here is a link that might be useful: TasteSpotting examples of Tangzhong

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Comments (10)

cloudy_christine
13 years ago
Ha! This is what Mennonite home bakers do here in PA! It's how they make whole wheat bread, and especially hot dog and hamburger rolls, as soft and squushy as supermarket bread. They cook a porridge of flour and water (or milk). The difference is they may cook it to a higher temp than 65 C (=149F).
I made it once long ago, but wasn't at all appealing to me. I've never had the Japanese milk bread, though,and maybe the effect is subtler.
Tracey_OH
13 years ago
I've made it before. The texture really is much softer than traditional homemade bread. It also keeps the bread fresher longer.

Tracey
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Yet one more "expert" opinion on the subject as told in the book, CookWise, by Shirley O. Corriher. (from page 80) Bread recipes in old cookbooks advise you to scald the milk before using it in a bread. I thought this heat was taken to kill some enzyme in the milk and that modern pasteurization had made scalding unnecessary. I had also heard that after running tests on scalded and unscalded milk a food magazine staff concluded that it made no difference. I did notice when I was developing the Honey Whole Wheat Loaf recipe, however, that an increase in the nonfat dry milk to 1/2 cup significantly reduced the bread volume. Attributing this to the sugar in the milk. I was then amazed to read in a professional baking book, "It has long been known in the are that nonfat dry milk seriously affects the volume, symmetry, cellular structure, and texture of bread when used as such. Research by prior investigators has found that such nonfat milk, when heat treated by holding it at about 180Â°F to 190Â°F over a period of time, overcomes this undesirable property to a certain degree when it is used in the conventional system of bread-making." When I delved into the literature on the subject, I found that in 1975 two Michigan State University researchers, T. Volpe and M.E. Zabik, isolated a protein in the whey that was responsible for this reduced volume and poor texture. Unfortunately it is present in nonfat dry milk as well as fresh. I believe that the amount of this protein is the key to whether it will harm the bread--that would explain why less than 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk had no ill effects on my bread. I imagine you will find that it does not matter in some recipes, but it may in others. But, as they say, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Personally I am going to scald both milk and reconstituted nonfat dry milk just for my own peace of mind. (end of information) Grainlady note: It comes down to how much dairy is in your bread, as to whether the protein found in whey will affect the bread adversly, if you DO NOT scald the milk. To avoid this problem, I'd suggest Baker's Special Dry Milk powder from King Arthur Flour (item 1188). After reading the information in CookWise, it helped me to understand why my Dill Bread, which has a large amount of cottage cheese in it, always had a less than perfect shape and crust formation. Now I heat the cottage cheese up to scalding temperature, and it has a much better finished appearance. It also helped me to understand why my bread experiments using large amounts of whey protein powder didn't work well. -Grainlady
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jadeite
13 years ago
Tracey - what kind of crust do you get with this method? Is it also very soft?

Thanks,
Cheryl
coconut_nj
13 years ago
This looks very interesting. I'm not doing much baking right now, but I'll keep the recipe for somewhat cooler times. Thanks for posting.
shambo
Original Author
13 years ago
I want to try this technique too. I was really impressed with the Japanese pastries. The yeast dough part was not overpoweringly sweet, and the texture was very soft and tender. The bread loaf was similar but a bit less sweet.
ynnej
13 years ago
I've never had any Mennonite food, but the Japanese certainly seem to have a way of making everything taste fabulous. Sounds great!
jessicavanderhoff
13 years ago
I do believe it's the secret behind the fluffy Bread Story type Asian pastries. I've been playing with it for gluten free baking (with a rice flour water roux), and it sticks the dough together enough to make pastry without xanthan. I think it may also be how rice noodles are made.
Tracey_OH
13 years ago
The crust was very soft but I baked it in my bread maker. Not sure how different it would be in a regular oven. I used 1/2c water and I weighed out 25 grams of flour. Cooked it to 150Ã¯Â¿Â½ then refrigerated it 3-4 hours. Keep an eye on your dough as this made mine rise way more than usual.

Tracey
Jasdip
13 years ago
Holy cow, it looks good! Reminds me of a Challah-type bread.

Here is another recipe/blog and pics from Tasty Kitchen.
She calls for warm milk, plus dry milk powder. I'm not sure what the milk powder does, and I never buy it, (and won't, just to use a bit in bread recipes). Would it be okay to leave out, or should I just increase the warm milk a tad?

Here is a link that might be useful: Tasty Kitchen's Japanese Milk Bread
dancinglemons
13 years ago
jasdip: You can leave the milk powder out. According to my research the milk powder is for "fragrance" and most of the recipe translated from Japanese and Chinese say "optional". I buy small tin of whole milk powder from Wallyworld for about $1.50 (brand NIDO) - I keep in freezer. We use the NIDO to make DIY evaporated milk because we can not use carageenan (sp??) which is in canned evap milk. I've become addicted to using this water roux/tang zhong method. I think the folks who make the Challah at our local grocer must use this method because the bread has about the same texture.

Cheers,
DL

Bread bakers - Have you heard of Japanese milk bread?

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