Even The Crust is White! Fluffy and Moist: Square White Bread (Shokupan)
- 250 grams Bread (strong) flour
- 50 grams Cake flour
- 4 grams Salt
- 30 grams Unsalted butter
- 30 grams Mizuame starch based sweet syrup (sugar syrup)
- 1 mizuame + milk to total 235 ml Milk warmed to about 40 C
- 4 grams Dry yeast
- Measure 30 g of mizuame (sugar syrup) into a measuring cup, add warmed milk up to the 235 ml level, and mix well.
- Put all the ingredients into a bread machine, use the dry yeast program + the dough-only program up to the end of the 1st rising, and leave the dough as-is until it has doubled in volume.
- When the dough has doubled in volume, take it out and deflate lightly.
- Divide into 3 pieces, round off each piece, cover with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out, and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
- Deflate the dough completely, and roll out each piece flat.
- Fold in the sides towards the center, and roll up the dough.
- (Make sure not to let any air in.)
- Roll up all 3 pieces of dough, put in the baking pan, and mist well.
- Cover the pan with plastic wrap and leave to rise for 45 to 60 minutes (2nd rising) until the dough fills the pan about 80% of the way.
- When the dough has filled the pan about 70%, start preheating the oven with the baking sheet inside to 180C.
- When the oven has heated up, dust the top of the dough with bread flour, and put the lid on.
- Put 4 layers of newspaper on top of the heated baking sheet, place the bread pan on top of that, and close the oven door.
- Lower the oven temperature to 160C, and bake for 18 minutes.
- Open the oven, quickly cover the pan with aluminum foil, and lower the temperature to 140C.
- Bake for another 12 minutes, for a total of 30 minutes.
- Since this just barely cooks the square loaf through to the middle, it's best not to change the baking at the higher temperature for 18 minutes + baking for a total of 30 minutes procedure.
- When the bread is baked, open the lid of the baking pan and drop the pan from about a 15 cm height to prevent the bread from collapsing.
- This bread is very soft so it's important to do this.
- This is how the loaf looks from the side.
- The top tends to brown so it's protected with a layer of bread flour just in case, but the sides are OK as-is.
- After the loaf has cooled down a bit, I tried opening up one of the seams (in between the 3 pieces of dough) with my fingers.
- Can you see how fluffy and soft it is?
- By deflating the dough very well after resting the dough, the finished bread should have a fine, even crumb.
bread, flour, salt, butter, mizuame starch, mizuame milk, yeast
Taken from cookpad.com/us/recipes/169915-even-the-crust-is-white-fluffy-and-moist-square-white-bread-shokupan (may not work)