It's been uncountable times failure to accomplish a good fine soft bread like this loaf. I often can not resist the rich smell of a fresh baked bread, so in a hurry to slice it off and have a cup of milk tea with it, what could have be more attempting than that?
level | prep time | total time | yield |
difficult | 30 mins | 3 - 5 hrs | half loaf - 450g |
Ingredients / Preparation:
1. 275g bread flour / sifted
2. 180g cold milk
3. 22g sugar
4. 5/8 teaspoon salt
5. 1 teaspoon instant yeast
6. 22g unsalted butter, room temperature / diced
Method:
1. Sift flour in a large bowl, add all the ingredients but butter and mix thoroughly. Turn out onto a board and add the butter to the dough a few pieces at a time, knead the dough until it's smooth, repeatedly till butter was all used.
2. Place a dough in a greased bowl, cover with cling wrap and let rise in warm place 1- 2 hours or until double.
3. Punch down dough and divide in half, let it rest for 15 minutes. Shape each half into loaf, cover again and let it rise until almost doubled.
4. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Bake 40 minutes or until loaves are deep golden brown and sound hollow when tapped; remove from pan and cool on wire rack.
Nagging PDD:
* Dough needs more love especially in winter time, the best room temperature for dough to rise is 38 degrees C, but also be careful anymore than 42 degrees C would kill the yeast.
*If you're unsure about the first time dough rising, just test it out with one finger poke through the centre of the dough, dough is ready if indentation remains when poke in and remove the finger.
*To improve a dough rise better in a cold weather, dough can be placed in a microwave or a oven with a glass of hot water.
*If it's only half of the baking time but on top of the bread already turns to dark brown colour, use foil to cover it up.
