dan lepard milk bread 奶香面包 (/^-^(^ ^*)/

when i research and choose to bake a recipe, i usually read up on the reviews and comments (most often than not, mistakes to avoid) from others who have baked it…  i’d always adored dan lepard’s recipes and no doubt, this is another winner… when i kneaded it, i knew it from the start that it will be an extremely soft bread… ( ＾◡＾)っ✂❤

Recipe adapted from The Guardian

Ingredients

375ml whole milk
100ml cold water
2 tsp fast-action yeast
75g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the tin
625g strong white flour
25g caster sugar or honey
Scant 2 tsp salt
Oil for kneading

Directions

– Boil the milk, then tip into a bowl and leave to cool, stirring in the cold water to bring down the temperature a bit quicker
– When it is gently warm, beat in the yeast and leave for five minutes to dissolve
– Melt the butter. Add the flour, sugar and salt to the yeast mix, then pour in the butter
– Using your hands, work everything to a rough but evenly mixed dough. (At this point, you can adjust it, adding slightly more water for a softer dough that will bake extra-light, or slightly more flour for a dough that will hold its shape better.)
– Cover and leave for 10 minutes, then lightly oil a patch of worktop and knead the dough for 10 seconds
– Return to the bowl and leave to rise for an hour, if you can giving it one or two brief kneads during that time
– Butter the inside of a large loaf tin and shape the dough into either two balls or a rolled-up sausage and place smooth side up in the tin. Leave to rise by half, flour the top, cut a slash down the middle and bake at 180C (160C fan-assisted)/350F/gas mark 4 for 50 minutes. Remove from the tin as soon as it’s baked and leave to cool
– for soft batch rolls ~ A batch roll or loaf is one that’s placed so close to the others as it bakes that they join at the sides and have to be torn apart after baking. Lightly dusted with flour before baking, they are delicious freshly baked and filled with anything from crisp bacon to the bare coolness of sliced cucumber and salted butter. To make them, divide one quantity of milk loaf dough into mini 50g or large 100g pieces, shape these into balls and sit them touching one another on trays lined with nonstick paper. The trick to getting them extra soft is all in the baking – you want to bake them at a high heat for a short time, because the heat will linger and set the crumb once they’re out of the oven. Bake the rolls at about 220C (200C fan-assisted)/425F/gas mark 7 for 20-25 minutes, just until they’re risen and coloured on top
* You can get a lighter texture by using softened rather than melted butter and by leaving the dough to rise for 15 minutes before incorporating the butter with an energetic knead

Personal notes:

– i halved the recipe and made 5 little lady bird buns (48g each) and a 340g loaf. lady bird buns were baked at 220 degrees C for 14 mins, and 340g loaf was baked for 48 mins at 180 degrees C
– to shape lady birds, shape each bun into a ball (after first proof, and before 2nd proof). using a chopstick, gently make an indentation into the dough (about 1/3 of the dough) to form the head. do not use too much strength, otherwise you will divide the head from the body which is what you do not want
– using your dough cutter, gently “cut” a slit to half the body to form the wings. ensure that you do not cut through the dough
– spots and eyes are dotted with tooth pick by mixing a tsp dark cocoa powder with an egg yolk
– after baking, allow bun to cool. then slice gently between the body till the indentation of the head and stop. then gently slice through the wings, and pry open the wings very gently. spread jam and enjoy!

my little cute lady bug… (⁎⁍̴̛͂▿⁍̴̛͂⁎)*✲ﾟ*｡⋆♡

Pollution index: 48 (excellent)