Easy Milk Bread Loaf

5 from 10 votes

Make some freshly baked and irresistibly fluffy and fragrant milk bread at home without needing to fuss around with tangzhong!

Prep Time30

Cook Time35

proofing and resting time3 15

Total Time4 20

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: Asian

Servings: slices

Calories: 189kcal

Author: Edwina

Mix bread flour, sugar, yeast, water and milk in a stand mixer, kneading on low speed until the dough is formed.
Cover the mixing bowl and let it rest for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, bring the butter out from the fridge, cut it into 4 pieces and leave it on the counter to soften a little.
Add salt and continue to knead the dough for 1 minute.
Add butter cubes and knead until the dough passes the windowpane test. (This step takes me about 7 minutes, with 6 minutes on low speed and 1 minute on medium speed. The actual time it takes you depends on your mixer.)
Form the dough into a ball (it will be a bit sticky) and put it in a lightly greased bowl. Cover and let it rise in a warm place (between 82°F to 90°F) for 1 hour until it almost doubles in size.

Transfer the dough onto a working surface and cut it (don't pull it apart with your hand) into 3 even pieces. Form each piece into a ball. Cover the dough balls with a damp dish towel or greased plastic wrap, allowing them to rest for 15 minutes.
Roll the dough out with a rolling pin to an oval shape and then roll it up to a log, do the same for the other two pieces, cover and let it rest for another 15 minutes. (See the pictures in the post)
For each log, rotate the dough 90 degrees before rolling them out again into long rectangles and rolling each rectangle back up into a cinnamon roll type of shape.
Grease a 10 x 5 loaf pan and coat with a thin layer of flour. Put the rolled up dough into the pan (see note), cover with greased plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place until it fills 80-90% of the pan (this takes about 1-1.5 hours).

Preheat the oven to 375°F in the last 20 minutes of proofing. Move the rack to about ⅓ of the way from the bottom.
Put it in the oven to bake for 30-35 minutes. Loosely cover with a piece of foil after baking for 15 minutes to prevent the bread color from turning too dark.
Remove bread from the oven and drop the pan on the counter top (from around two inches up) once to help prevent it from shrinking, then transfer the bread on a cooling rack right away. Brush the top with melted butter and let it cool for 15 minutes before enjoying.

Measure your ingredients with a kitchen scale! Especially for flour and liquids, because your one cup can be very different from my one cup.
Start with cold liquid - I learned this from professional bakers in Taiwan. Since the dough needs a lot of kneading, using cold liquid prevents the final dough from becoming too warm and negatively impacting the resulting texture of the bun. During the summer time, I will even put my milk and water in the freezer for 30 minutes before incorporating them.
I like to use the Autolyse method, which simply consists of allowing the dough to rest for 30 minutes before adding salt and butter. This will shorten the mixing time later and help your dough to pass the windowpane test faster.
The best proofing temperature is between 80 - 90°F (26.5 - 32°C). If your indoor temperature is too low, you can proof your dough in a sealed oven along with a separate glass tray filled with boiling water on the bottom rack.
The actual baking time may depend on your oven. Ultimately, you're done once your bread's internal temperature reaches 190°F (87°C). Don't over bake!
In this recipe, I use a 1.5lb pan, with dimensions of 10" x 5" x 3". If you use a 1lb pan (8.5" x 4.5" x 2.75"), see the table in the post to convert the amount of each ingredient. You might need to reduce the baking time by 5 minutes.