Asian Milk Bread

Asian Milk Bread! Hong Kong Pai Bao, Hokkaido Milk Bread, or just Milk Bread. Make this Chinese Bakery classic at home! 

We spent Easter Sunday with some friends and my friend, Jayne made this delicious Asian Milk Bread. It was so delicious, I asked for the recipe and immediately came home and made it just two days later. Before I followed the recipe Jayne shared with me, I googled “Asian Sweet Bread” and “Asian Milk Bread” and read through a few different recipes.

Asian Milk Bread

This should really just be three small loaves put together. I’m not sure how but I had enough dough to put four small loaves together and make two loaves. When you make yours, just put three into each bread loaf baking dish. I’ll definitely be making this again!

The Recipe I Followed

I followed this recipe from instructables.com. Read below to see what I did differently. Next time, I think I am going to follow this recipe from A Day in the Kitchen, which includes great step-by-step photos. I think this is really helpful. This recipe uses milk powder as well. Since this is not my recipe, I am only posting here on my website so I can direct you guys to the recipe links to follow.

Visit instructables.com for the full recipe. I just changed up a few things. 

For this delicious sweet bread:

• 5 cups bread flour (I used bread flour but you can also use all-purpose flour)
• 2/3 cup white granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup of milk
• 4 teaspoons instant yeast (this is usually two packages of yeast)
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temp 
• 1 serving of  tangzhong: see below 

For the tangzhong:

1/3 cup of bread flour (all purpose will work as well)
1 cup of water

When you are ready to add the wet ingredients into the dry, I did this in my stand mixer bowl. You will attach the dough hook after this and mix. I didn’t knead the dough for 30 minutes. I should probably do this next time. When forming and shaping your dough before you place into your bread loaf pans, I would look at these photos. Also, I let my dough proof for a few hours. It took that long for it to double in size. Do the egg wash and then bake the bread at 325 degrees F for about 30 minutes. Enjoy!

This bread is so delicious! I will be making this again soon! and you can form and shape the dough into different shapes! Check out this post as well from The Woks Of Life. Other recipes worth checking out: Kimchimari.com and Beyond Kimchee.