ILONA ANDREWS

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

You are here: Home / Blog / Milk Bread

Milk Bread

Blog, Cooking, Fun POST A COMMENT by

I like the texture of Hawaiian rolls but not the sugar. I found this recipe, tried it yesterday, and am happy to report it’s exactly that: Hawaiian roll like texture with a fraction of sweetness.

I did a little bit of research and I’m guessing that what we view as “Hawaiian rolls” was probably a modification of the Japanese milk bread to begin with. This bread, known as Hokkaido milk bread, was created in Japan using tang zhong, a traditional Chinese starter for buns, which utilizes milk or water mixed with a small amount of flour. Surprisingly, this recipe doesn’t add flour to the milk, and now I am wondering if that should’ve been a thing.

A note: they are baking this at 350 for 20 minutes. My baking time had to be adjusted to 30 minutes. I think that the house might have been a bit too cold and my second proofing didn’t go as well, so the bread was slightly denser. Or maybe it’s my oven.

I was going to take pretty pictures for you, but once the bread was sampled, it was immediately declared the best bread I ever made, and I only got this pic before it got eaten.

NEVER MISS A BOOK RELEASE

Join 30,000 Subscribers

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO
PUBLISHING NEWS

New book releases, give-aways, and appearances.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO
BLOG UPDATES

Free fiction, snippets, and funny stories.

Read our Privacy Policy.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Bread is my kryptonite! I try to avoid it because I just eat it all. With butter!
    But this looks good. We’ll have to try it this weekend!
    Hope your weekend is peaceful!

  2. Looks yummy! Bread must be on the menu as I have a recipe from Pinterest in my oven right now called “Simple Sweet Bread”.
    My daughter texted me from upstairs and asked if I was baking and I said maybe. I then told her what I was baking and she said “Dibs” ????.

    Happy Friday – hope everyone has a safe Halloween ????

  3. Several years ago I bought a folding bread proofer on Amazon it can proof two full size loaf pans at a time. It lets you control temperature and has a water tray to add humidity.

    It eliminates the cold room issue. The maker is Brod & Taylor it is no longer available on Amazon but the maker’s website still offers it.

    • I love KAF. My favourite banana bread of all time is their whole wheat version. I add a tsp of penzeys cake spice but otherwise dont change anything.

  5. Thank you , Ilona Andrews, for the post. Will go great with chili i am making in crockpot. I appreciated the video you found. I am a lot messier than demo person thou.

    Hot rolls with honey and fresh butter. Hmm. Like manna from heaven in my house. Thank you for suggestion.

  6. Actually, Hawaiian Sweet Bread is based off of Portuguese Sweet Bread. And modified in Hawaii. In Hawaii, we eat a lot of Portuguese foods. The Portuguese were sailors and there is a lot of their influence still in the islands. We eat a lot of Portuguese sausage, and it’s a staple for breakfast there.

    • So strange that you mention the Portuguese influence in Hawaii. I was just reading an article yesterday about how the ukulele was actually a variation on the four-stringed Portuguese braguinha brought to the islands by Portuguese sailors. They didn’t know how to play it; they probably brought it as a gift to the Hawaiian royalty. And just look what the Hawaiians have done with it!

      • I know when I research the Portuguese, I’m amazed at how far reaching their influence is. They were everywhere, had extensive colonies, and shipping routes. I read that they have found archeological evidence that the peninsula was inhabited by Celts. It was eye opening looking into it.

        • Oh another thought, the Portuguese were among the first people to have a trade agreement with Japan. So I wonder if the Milk Bread is based upon the Portuguese bread?

        • The Japanese got the word “arigato” from the Portuguese “abrigado.” Those sailors got around…

  7. Hooray for this. Trader Joe’s sells some milk rolls that are so good I can the whole bag in a day. I want to try this!

  8. This looks great and relatively easy.
    I think I have a pan that would be the right size.But I don’t bake. And my oven is very, very old. So, no baking.
    But I always appreciate your food recipes. And the food photos that accompany theInnkeeper chapters.
    I miss the Friday snippets.
    One week, we get Vala trees, or trays of fruits artfully arranged. Then we have, Dina’s dog, or sketches of the innkeeper. And then OMG, Arland!
    Thank you for the wonderful tales.
    Thank you for all the extras.
    Happy Halloween ???? !!

  9. Between the British Bake Off shows and the Japanese TV Series – Midnight Diner – Tokyo Stories, I have been eating a lot of Japanese influenced foods. I might even get a Japanese omelette pan. I am now attempting to make this bread, but I may just buy it; there is a Daiso store close by – Japanese Yen store where most items are $1.50, and they sell Hokkaido buns in different flavors. Yes – slightly sweet and super soft!

  11. I also use a hokkaido bread recipe! Mine is from King Arthur Flour and it’s the perfect thing for making homemade sausage rolls as well as soft dinner rolls. Everyone who’s had one begs for more.

  12. This looks wonderful! We love Hawaiian rolls. Usually only have them for holidays. For home made bread I bake a bread recipe passed down through my family called Hill Climbers Bread. It takes 3 hours to make and is a denser bread hearty enough to get you up a mountain. (Betting that’s where the name came from)????
    I’m going to surprise the family and make a new bread! Thanks for the recipe!

  14. The best comment on food is that it is snarfed before the glamour shot has time to occur.

  17. As a long time baker I suggest you check out the King Arthur Baking web site. They have blogs on milk bread, tangzhong, and all things baking related. Tangzhong involves cooking the flour with the milk and cooling before adding to the dough. I think it doesn’t change the flavor, just the texture. Bon appetit!

  18. I follow Emmymade on Facebook and she just made something like this. It looks yum and I like less sugar.

  19. Have you tried Scottish Morning Rolls? Really rather good, something about the milk in mixture.

  20. There’s a cinnamon roll recipe that uses a milk bread recipe and I feel like it’s the best cinnamon roll recipe ever! I prefer my cinnamon rolls softer so I love it but my sister thinks its just ok.

  21. I live on an island in lake superior. It’s seldom really warm here. My bread rises in one of my ovens with the light on. That keeps it warm enough to rise but not too hot or drafty. My grandmother insisted it was the draft that killed the yeast… I don’t know, I’ve managed to kill yeast several ways but I still try to keep rising bread out of the cold and draft.

    • I found I was killing yeast by using liquids that were too warm. I bought a candy thermometer and haven’t had a problem since.

  22. Warm homemade bread with butter and brown sugar, and hot cocoa. Yum!! The best winter Saturday night supper when I was a kid!

    How the generational view changed: the 1930’s – my mother and her sibs begged their mom (my grandma) for store-bought bread; the 1970’s – My sibs and I begged our mom for homemade bread.

  23. In Eastern Europe, we add filling to this dough (cocoa, sugar, ground walnuts and turkish delight or dried fruits) and we eat the brioche for Christmas and Easter. I think it’s weird to add sugar to bread, but I know that’s a thing in North America.

    • Right, right, we have this in my country too (also Eastern Europe), and it tastes even better with a cup of warm milk. 🙂
      But yeah, our usual bread is flour and water and yeast and a bit of salt; when my brother traveled to St. Kitts, the breakfast buffet at the hotel had all these types of American bread, and he was so perplexed that he couldn’t find one single type of non-sweet bread among them (the sweet bread tasted unnatural to him as he wasn’t used to it; I’m sure many Americans would feel the same now about non-sweet bread).
      Personally, I wish I could eat sweet bread daily, but alas, my body doesn’t mesh well with sweet stuff, and even a bit of sugar just leads to more sugar cravings for me…

  24. I learned how to make pita bread from Cook’s Country on PBS last week and it came out great. The stuff in the stores is so bland, but CC’s recipe was easy even though there were a lot of steps to do. It doesn’t stay fresh for long but we made little pizzas and it was tasty and fun to prepare with the kids.
    I’ve done a lot of baking since March 17 2020 and have the extra pounds to prove it!

  25. My dad used to bake a lot of bread, and he said that the more thoroughly you knead the bread, the easier it is to avoid dense bread.

  26. I recommend making milk bread rolls at Thanksgiving. Use the leftover rolls, turkey and dressing to make the worlds best sandwiches the next couple days. You won’t regret it. Everyone fights over the leftover milk bread sandwiches at our house.

    • Ha. I bet. When I make stuffing sandwiches, my husband says, “You do realize you just made a bread sandwich, don’t you?” I’m glad someone else puts stuffing in sandwiches.

  28. I love Milk Bread – it has been one of my #covidbaking staples although I’m on a sourdough/Bagel kick right now. I like the NYT recipe and use my Pullman Pan (not the long skinny ones) to make a perfectly square loaf that fits pre-sliced cheese perfectly. My brother refers to it as “Brutalist” bread, but it’s excellent. I don’t love the sweeter Hawaiian rolls, but the texture on this bread is perfect. We’re fortunate in the Portland Metro area to have Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese bakeries, which all do slightly different variations. Thanks for sharing this post 🙂 Have a very happy halloween!

    Also! If anyone happens to have a good Khachapuri recipe that you’d be willing to share, I’d love to try that. I fell in love with it when I was in Russia last year, was planning on going to Georgia this year, and then COVID. 🙁

    NYT recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016275-japanese-milk-bread?action=click&module=Local%20Search%20Recipe%20Card&pgType=search&rank=1

  29. Such a timely post. My new bread machine (number 5 in a line of used until they died predecessors) has a “Milk Bread” cycle. I had never heard of it and have been researching online to see what it is. Now, I will have to try it out. Thanks.

  30. Yessss, Hokkaido milk bread! I taught English in rural Hokkaido for five years, and I loved getting milk bread with school lunches. Thursdays were bread days so we got it pretty often. It’s delicious warm and briefly dipped in milk.

  32. I make a standard roll recipe from Fanny Farmer’s cookbook, that is a family heirloom. I use bread flour, but all purpose flour can be used.

    The recipe only uses a tablespoon of sugar. That’s mainly for the yeast to grow. I also use it for pizza dough when I feel like making homemade pizza.

  33. I’ve also been watching YouTube videos on milk bread. I’ve been craving char Sui bao and no place to buy it where I live so I’m gonna make my own! Yours looks delicious ????

    • Oh man. That sounds great. I think bao are generally steamed. We can get the frozen ones here, but due to COVID all of our best dim sum places are closed. 🙁

  34. I want the bread, but I really, really want the scrapey thing she had that she mixed with. Anyone know what it’s called?

    • Just a plastic bowl scraper. I prefer my metal bench scraper, but I also generally knead in my stand mixer.

  36. What’s the equivalent English flour to all purpose flour? Plain flour, self raising or strong white flour?

      • The British plain flour has less gluten (softer) than American all purpose. Strong flour is their version of bread flour. Self-raising is what American calls self-rising.

        • I wonder if White Lily Flour (a silky low-protein, low-gluten flour made with soft red winter wheat that is typically grown and sold in the Southern US states) would be an equivalent to British plain flour.

  41. Actually, I believe it’s descended from Portugese Sweet Bread. I lived in Hawaii for awhile and have the recipe from a Portugese-American roommate. Yummy. But, yes, sugar.

  44. When in my quarantine baking frenzy ans trying hard to waste nothing I found left over milk bread makes excellent French toast!

    • I was just wondering about this when I read a comment earlier about using a proofer to make yogurt. I thought that if a proofer could make yogurt, then surely a yogurt maker could proof? I briefly heat my oven, then shut it off to proof, but, well,….. ???? I’ve forgotten to shut it off before. ????‍♀️ (My dream feature on an oven is a proof setting, but I’m holding on to mine as long as I can.) I’ll have to try that in my Pot. Thanks for sharing! ????

  46. I’ve never understood why there is so much ‘unnecessary’ sugar in bread. Even supposed healthy bread.

    • Because sugar is cheap and yummy; it makes people addicted, and drives people to eat much more (sugar-laden) food than they need for satiety. People will buy more and more stuff that has sugar in it, which is what the food industry was aiming at all along–greater profit margins. And when people become fat and sick, the profits start rolling in for great pharma as well.
      Look up the “Fed Up” documentary. Apart from that, it’s just an issue of following the money.

  47. This looks so good. I made Irish Soda Bread today. I’m going to toast some for breakfast tomorrow. Now I want this bread. Sigh. I don’t have the best control around bread. Especially warm, homemade bread. Thank you for the recipe.

  48. I call that brioche ! Breads, in my definition have not eggs or milk in it.

    And I totally love brioche.

  49. I’ve been hearing about milk bread off and on for a couple of months now and have been considering making it. I normally make sourdough rolls, but I think I will try the milk bread as well.

Skip to content