Shokupan

Details

Shokupan or Hokkaido milk bread is comparable to toast, sandwich bread and brioche. Easy to make, sure to succeed, tastes good as a sandwich untoasted and as toast. The Japanese version is very sweet. Mine is much less sweet, then goes well with savory and sweet toppings. Can also be frozen in slices.

I recommend you a toast bread mold with lid and separator. It's worth it if you bake toast, shokupan or brioche frequently.

Dimensions: The rectangular loaf pan is 8 cm high, 36 cm wide, 11 cm deep and made of aluminized steel sheet. You can bake 1 kg of toast but also less due to the separator. In my opinion, the separator is important.

Of course you can also try to use a "normal" baking pan. Then you should coat the dough with egg.

You can also test the dough for burger buns. Bram, try it out.

Shokupan devided into 2

Shokupan in the mould

For 1 toast

Cooking piece

25g flour
40g milk

Main dough

5g fresh yeast
5g honey, about 1 tsp
5g sugar, about 1 tsp
3-5g salt
250g flour
140g milk (room warm)
30g butter (room temperature)
Cooking piece

For the cooked piece, heat milk over medium heat in a saucepan and stir in the flour without lumps until you have a thick porridge. Let the porridge cool to room temperature.

While the cooked piece is cooling, measure out all the other ingredients and place them in a blender. Blend the dough with the cooled cooked piece for about 6 minutes.

Form the dough into a firm ball by hand.

Let the dough mature covered in a greased mold for 2-3 hours. Press the air out of the dough.

Divide the dough into 2 portions and shape into balls again. Let the dough balls mature in the greased mold for another 15 minutes.

Flatten the balls a bit and form them into an oblong shape. Go over them once with the rolling pin, the dough ball should be about 1cm thick.

Then punch in from the long sides to the center of each, roll over again, and roll the dough from the short side into a snail. This is harder to describe than to make.

You should now have rolls that fit into the toast pan.

Grease the mold with butter or baking release spray (don't forget the lid) and place the two rolls in the mold with very little spacing. Place the separator inside. Press the rolls lightly so the bread will fit in the corners. Put the lid on, but don't press it shut yet.

Let the shokupan rise covered for 1-2 hours. You can even rest it in the fridge overnight.

If you work without a lid, you should whisk an egg with a little water and brush the top of the bread.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Bake with steam - just dump 1 cup of water on the bottom of the oven - 35 minutes.

As soon as you can touch the pan, open the lid. Turn the bread out onto a board. Let the bread cool before cutting it.

Back