Laminated Milk Bread (Miru Fiyu Shokupan) Recipe
By Tim Anderson
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Easy
I didn’t want to include a milk bread recipe. Here’s the thing: Hokkaido milk bread is bread made with Hokkaido milk, not a particular style of bread from Hokkaido. Milk bread made outside of Hokkaido, without Hokkaido milk, is not Hokkaido milk bread.
Having said all of that: who am I to deny my readers such a delicious bake? Of course, there are already a lot of milk bread recipes out there, so I thought I’d try something different. This is a laminated milk bread, inspired by one I bought at Heart Bread Antique in Sapporo. It is essentially a cross between milk bread and a croissant, and is every bit as delicious as that sounds.
Don’t want a laminated milk bread? Well what’s wrong with you?!? Just kidding – go ahead and make the bread without the lamination, it will still work. This recipe is informed by Matt Adlard’s tropézienne cube from Bake it Better.
This recipe is extracted from Hokkaido by Tim Anderson, (Hardie Grant, £28), Photography by Laura Edwards
Try Tim Anderson's Gatatan (Thick Chinese-Style Miners' Soup) or Zangi (Hokkaido-Style Chicken Karaage) recipe!
Ingredients for Laminated Milk Bread
For the milk roux
- 150 g whole milk
- 75 g plain (all-purpose) flour
For the dough
- 225 g whole milk
- 2 eggs
- 14 g dried yeast
- 620 g plain (all-purpose) flour
- 10 g salt
- 50 g honey
- 25 g caster (superfine) sugar
- 50 g butter, diced, at room temperature
Laminating & baking
- 250 g butter
- 2 tbsp double (heavy) cream
How to make Laminated Milk Bread
- To make the roux, stir together the milk and flour in a medium microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 2 minutes (800W), stirring well every 30 seconds. Leave to cool to body temperature or lower before proceeding with the recipe.
- For the dough, combine the milk, eggs, and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, and mix on medium speed for a minute or two, until the eggs are beaten. Add the flour, salt, honey, and sugar. Switch the mixer on to low speed, then tear the roux into little chunks and drop them into the mixer, one by one, then add the butter as well. Switch the speed up to medium-low (speed 2 on my KitchenAid, for reference), and knead for 10–15 minutes.
- At this point, check that your dough passes the ‘windowpane test’. You should be able to grab a blob of dough and stretch it out to a thinness that allows you to see through it. If the dough tears, or stretches into strings rather than sheets, keep kneading. Once your dough has passed this test, tip it out onto a tray, cover loosely with cling film, and place in the fridge for six hours (or overnight) to rest.
- To make the butter block, take the butter out of the fridge about an hour before you intend to start the lamination process. Cut the butter into slices about 5 mm (1/4 in) thick, then arrange the slices on a sheet of baking parchment, in a rectangle measuring 15x25 cm (6x10 in). Place another sheet of baking parchment on top of the butter, then roll across the surface with a rolling pin to press together the gaps in the butter and make a solid rectangle.
- Lightly flour the countertop, then roll the dough out into a rectangle about 33x27 cm (13x10 in). Place the butter block onto one half of the rectangle of dough, and fold over the other half, like a book, enclosing the butter. At this point, the butter should be just warm enough to be pliable, but if your kitchen is particularly cold, you might need to let it rest before proceeding. If at any point, you feel or see the butter cracking as you fold the dough, pause for 15 minutes or so, then come back and try again.
- Roll the dough out once again into a large rectangle, 33x27 cm (13x10 in). Fold in half again (like a book), then into thirds again (like a letter). You now have 6 layers of butter. Rest the dough for 15 minutes to let the gluten relax, then repeat this process (roll – book fold – letter fold) once more. At the end of the process, you will have 36 layers of butter.
- Grease the inside of a 12 or 13 cm (4 3/4–5 in) square Pullman loaf tin (pan) with the double cream, including the inside of the tin’s lid. Roll your dough out to a large square the same length as the tin (for me this is 30 cm (1 13/4 in)), then roll the dough up like a carpet, and transfer to the tin, with the spiral edges facing outwards towards either end. Leave to prove until the dough has risen to within 1–2 cm (1/2–3/4 in) of the top of the tin – I find this is best done overnight in the fridge.
- Preheat the oven to 170ºC fan (375ºF), then slide the lid onto the tin, and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove the bread from the tin as soon as it is done, and leave to cool on a wire rack.
- The bread is fantastic as is but benefits from toasting, and a drizzle of condensed milk or a thin spread of jam. It will keep for about five days, but even when it does go stale, it will still be delicious once toasted.
Melon pan variation
- Half a batch of this bread dough, without the lamination, will yield eight melon pan.
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Simply form the dough into big balls, then top each one with a round of cookie dough:
100 g (3 1/2 oz) salted butter
70 g (2 1/2 oz) caster (superfine) sugar
30 g (1 oz) light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
A few drops of melon essence
240 g (8 1/2 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour
1/2 tsp baking powder - Prove until poofy, and bake for 18 minutes at 170ºC fan (375ºF).
- If you like, you can fill the finished pan with melon custard.
About the author
Tim Anderson is an award-winning chef, writer, and the brilliant mind behind London’s popular ramen izakaya, Nanban. Originally from Wisconsin, Tim’s passion for Japanese food began as a hobby but quickly evolved into a career after winning MasterChef in 2011. With over 20 years of immersion in Japanese food culture, including time spent living in Fukuoka, Tim has authored beloved cookbooks like JapanEasy, Vegan JapanEasy, and the award-winning Tokyo Stories. His work celebrates authentic Japanese flavours with a fresh and accessible twist.
