How to Make Perfect Shokupan (Japanese Milk Bread), with Neil Carby

Our good buddy Neil Carby, Edmonton highschool teacher and viral food content creatore, has been recreating his favourite foods from Japan and dpcumenting the process for a couple of years now. He's tackled everything from yakitori & ramen, to the famed katsu-sando and tamago-sando. One key component of a good konbini sandwhich is the soft, fluffy shokupan, white bread often referred to as Japanese milk bread in the west. After getting his hands on one of our Matsunaga Shokupan Molds, he got to work perfecting his recipe, which he was nice enough to share with us. Check it out!

Ingredients

Yudane:

• 80g bread flour
• 80g boiling water

Dough:

• 315g bread flour
• 210g 3% milk
• 32g white sugar
• 6.5g salt
• 5g dry active yeast
• 32g softened butter 

Recipe

1. For the yudane, mix boiling water with flour until a sticky paste forms. Cover with plastic wrap, and leave at room temperature overnight.
2. For the dough, warm the milk to 110°F; mix in yeast and sugar, and bloom for 5-10 minutes.
3. Add the flour, salt, and yudane (in pieces) and mix for 3 minutes.
4. Increase the speed to medium for 3-5 minutes, until the dough forms 1 smooth mass and cleans the sides of the bowl.
5. Set mixer to low and add in small pieces of the butter, until fully incorporated. Turn back to medium, and mix for 8-12 minutes. 
6. Check if the dough passes the windowpane (stretch a small piece, see if it goes thin enough to let light through without tearing), otherwise keep mixing.
7. Lightly oil the bowl, cover and proof for 1.5 hours.
8. Divide into 3 equal balls (roughly 250 g). Cover and rest for 15 min.
9. Lightly grease the shokupan mould.
10. 1 at a time, roll out each ball into a large rectangle, roughly 25 x 13 cm. Fold the long edges in towards the middle, slight overlap in the middle. Then roll lightly into a long rectangle roughly 30 x 8 cm.
11. Roll up the rectangle from the short side to form a log, place seam side down in the shokupan mould. 
12. Slide the lid closed, and proof until about 1.5 cm from the top (90 minutes).
13. Bake at 375°F for 34 minutes.
14. Remove from oven, and drop from a few inches above a towel-lined cutting board to “shock” the bread.
15. Remove loaf from pan, and cool completely before slicing (15 min on side 1, then side 2, then upright).