Food Time: Hokkaido Milk Bread

Ok, so I've been obsessed with bread since God knows when. And of course, being Asian, I love and grew up eating Asian bread. So when I moved here, it was a rare thing to find Asian bread, unless you go to Asian markets (even that, I wasn't too happy about it)... Until 85C Bakery in Irvine & Rowland Heights popped up. Irvine was the first one. The line for the bakery can take about 30 - 40 minutes, especially on the weekends. Usually when I'm there, I would purchase $30 worth of bread. Yes, bread. They get consume within 2 days. 

After researching, I finally found out the name of the bread that I've been craving: Hokkaido Milk Bread. Apparently it originates from Japan, specifically Hokkaido, where they use Milk in the bread. Apparently, their quality of milk is very superb too! Yum.

Anyways, I grew up eating bread with fillings... My favorite will always be Chocolate and Banana... so of course I made some. 

So I tried out 3 different recipes. The first 2 I made while watching the election. And all, with the power of my bread machine. Yes. I love that thing to pieces. NO tired arms here.

Apparently the key to yummy Asian bread is this: TANGZHONG. It's a paste that you can make yourself that keeps the bread so soft and fluffy. It's so easy to make. 

Another key ingredients that I paid attention was Heavy Cream. Yes. Heavy Cream. In your bread? Yes. And also Powdered Milk. Gosh, the smell of the bread out of the oven = heaven.

This is the first batch. Recipe is this one. This turned out so dense. You get full just eating one. It was too heavy for me. I don't know if it was the recipe or I made a mistake somewhere during the process. I wasn't happy with the results, even though it tasted so yummy, I started to make another batch from another recipe.

Now, this was the Victory Bread. Why? It turned out so good and at the same time, Obama was announced President again. I used this recipe, with the addition of the Tangzhong. It didn't called for it in the this recipe, so I had to adjust the amount of flour. I was like, "WTH" when I saw how liquidy and soft the dough was in the machine. So I believe I added another 1/4 cup of bread flour to the dough.

For my 3rd attempt, I made this out of sadness and boredom after dropping Robert off to the airport. Yes. Depression and sadness leads me to the kitchen. True story, hahaha... Now this one turned out awesome. Also, I added fillings, like I said, to half of the dough (I doubled up THIS recipe). One thing was that I should've baked it a couple of minutes longer, but I was impatient and was getting worried that my bread was gonna browned too soon (A Tip I read was that, on the 20 minute mark, I should've create a Foil Tent to the pan so the bread won't browned too much and let it baked for another 10 minutes.)

This one I filled with a 1/4 slice of a banana and Ghiradelli's Chocolate Chip. Yes. It was great. 

As happy I was with the results, I'm still not satisfied. I want to learn to make it again. I have to do more research. I'm still curious on how to make the outside/crust as soft as the inside... You know, like the King's Hawaiian Rolls. Soft all around. Now if I reached to that point, bombizzle. 

Anyways, here's my way of rolling the bread.

Option for filling: You can insert your filling of choice in the middle of the dough before you roll it up like a swiss roll :)

Seriously, if ANYONE has ANY TIPS on how to make mah bunz soft, please share!!! I'm desperate. If it wasn't for my Mother's continuing rant on how Carbs can make you fat, I would probably be in the kitchen again trying to make more bread!

Who loves bread?

Bread Kisses,

Rima