Fluffiest vegan milk bread)
The famous Japanese milk bread, made fully vegan! It's incredibly soft, fluffy, and delicious even without eggs or dairy.
Ingredients
- 360 g bread flour
- 45 g sugar | such as pure cane sugar
- 5 g sea salt
- 5 g instant or quick-rise yeast
- 210 g water / plant-based milk | room temperature
- 45 g vegan butter | softened
Instructions
- In the bowl of a mixer, combine all ingredients except for the butter. Knead until smooth and elastic, then add in butter and continue kneading until the dough passes the windowpane test.
- To test: stretch a small piece of dough into a thin, translucent membrane; you should be able to see your fingerprints through the "windowpane". (Kneading time will vary; my bread machine took ~45 minutes.)
- Place the dough into a bowl, cover, and let rise to 2.5x its original volume.
- Once the dough has risen, punch it down and divide it into three equal pieces. Roll them into smooth balls and cover again to rest for 15 minutes.
- Then, take one piece and roll it into a rough rectangle.
- Fold the left 1/3 of the rectangle towards the center, then fold the right 1/3 towards the center.
- Roll the folded dough outwards into a long and narrow rectangle -- about 8 x 40 cm.
- With the short side towards you, roll the dough up into a tight log, then place it in a greased 8 x 4 inch loaf pan.
- Repeat steps 4 through 7 with remaining dough pieces, and let the loaf rise for 45 minutes, or until nearly doubled in size.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 350F / 180C for 40 minutes, covering the top of the bread with foil as soon as it begins to darken in color.
- Leave the loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Let cool completely.