Japanese cooking: ShokuPan (Japanese White bread)
As you already know, I like baking. I love to bake bread.
The smell of freshly baked bread is out of world and, I enjoy all kinds of bread.
I came to the states in summer, 2002 and I have still be searching for the white bread that I like, preferably close to Japanese white bread; it is light, fluffy, soft but not the kind of bread that stick to the top of your mouth from too much sugar in the bread, and springy its texture is kind of like between French bread and dinner roll and no egg is used although we use milk instead of water in the dough.
The crust is soft but not shiny soft like dinner roll crust.
Shokupan is Japanese traditional sandwich bread (white bread).
Shokupan has its unique smell to it not just by texture and, I tend to eat white bread toast in Japan when I visit my family once in a while because those are kind of things that are hard to find here in the states and if we did, it is triple expensive.
Because of that, I started trying various recipes trying to find the perfect shokupan I like and can make myself here in USA when I miss those Japanese bread.
This recipe you find below is one of the good recipes for Shokupan. It will be one of repeater recipe at our house.
I would still need to remind myself to rub some oil on plastic wrap to cover over proofing bread dough so it would not stick to it to make the hole in the dough but,if I keep it in mind, taste wise, it is one of the good ones.
This bread disappeared very fast at our house.Try make your own and see if you like them.
Shokupan..
Japanese white bread; Shokupan
Ingredients for shokupan:
1.5 tsp dry yeast
8g milk
155ml water
20g sugar
230g bread flour
4g active dry yeast
20g butter
4g salt
Extra virgin olive oil
0. Preheat the oven at 200F and when it reached to 200F,turn the oven off
1. In the bowl, add 230g bread flour, 20g white sugar, 4g salt, 8g milk, 4g dried yeast, 155 ml water and mix well
2. When dough came together,sprinkle some flour on the counter and transfer the dough to the counter to begin kneading the dough until the dough is smooth,elastic dough about 6-8 minutes
** Using silpat mat is easy to work with
** You can test your dough to see if you knead it more. Do the Windowpane test.
What is windowpane test??
Windowpane test is the test the gluten development in the dough.
What you do is to cut off small piece of dough,and gently stretch out/pulling to see if it will hold a paper-thin membrane.If it tore apart,you would knead a bit more and do the test again.
3. When dough becomes supple,smooth,elastic dough, add in 20g butter inn the dough and knead till butter mixed well and then, drizzle Extra Virgin Olive Oil onto empty bowl and smear it around side and inside bottom to make easy for you to take the dough out later
4. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and place the dough in the oven,set the timer for 90 minutes
5. 90 minutes later, dough will be larger size in volume (should be doubled)
6. Once the dough gets nearly double in volume, punch the dough,and ,take the dough out from the bowl onto the silpat mat/slightly floured surface
7. Divide the dough into 3, and form the dough into disc/round shape.Then, cover the dough with plastic wrap (greased will be better) let them rest for 10-15 minutes
8. Roll each disc into rectangle and bring top side toward you to fold over to the center and then bring the bottom side up to fold to the center so you have another smaller rectangle shape (long side is your side)
9. Turn the smaller folded over rectangle shaped dough to the direction so you have short length side on your front and roll the dough up and pinch the edge with your side of palm and put the first rolled one into greased bread pan 9″ x 5″ with smoother side looking towards the shorter length of bread pan (you have the shorter length side closer to you when you put the rolled dough) and , and put the second rolled one to the right next so it would touch the side.
Then, place the last rolled dough to the right next. All the rolled dough should be touching each other but not touching to the short side of the bread pan.
10. Let it proof about 40 minutes to 60 minutes until the dough gets proofed by 80% or so. If you found air pocket,poke it with toothpicjs to collapse.
11. Bake them for about 20-30 minutes or so at 375F until golden
Enjoy! Butter is good with this but my husband loves cinnamon butter with this bread.