Welcome to Pai's Kitchen

Hey everyone, welcome to Pai's Kitchen! I am making my very first bread recipe of the show, but not any kind of bread. I am making Asian-style fluffy, light as cloud bread. Now, in Asia, they like to call this Hokkaido milk bun, not because I'm using milk from Hokkaido or anything. That's just the name that they use.

There is a lot of milk in the recipe, which is one of the secrets to its fluffiness. Now, if you have been intimidated by bread baking, I get you, I've been there, but trust me. This recipe is very forgiving. Give it a go, I think you're going to have success.

So, let's get started with what's called a milk roux, or tangzhong in Chinese. This is the secret to the fluffiness and softness of the bread. It's super easy. Okay, so I've got here some whole milk. Wee! And into this I'm gonna add some flour. And I'm using bread flour because we are after all making bread. Bread flour is high in gluten, which is gonna allow you to create that chewiness of the bread.

So, I'm gonna give this a whisk to make sure I get rid of any flour lumps. Now, I'm gonna turn this on and once I turn the heat on, I wanna be stirring all the time. Once the milk starts heating up, it starts getting thicker. That's exactly what you're going for. Oh, look at that! Look at that.

And once it's super thick like this, basically once it's not getting any thicker than where it is, turn off the heat. So, you might be thinking, "How do I know when it's ready?" Well, just keep an eye on it and stop stirring once it reaches that consistency. You'll see what I mean.

Now that we have our milk roux, let's move on to the next step. We're gonna mix it with some flour and yeast to create the dough for our bread. But before we get started, can you tell me if you've ever made bread before? Have you been intimidated by the process or do you feel comfortable with it? Let me know in the comments below!

Alright, let's get started! In this recipe, we're using a combination of all-purpose and whole wheat flour to create that perfect balance of flavor and texture. We'll also be adding some sugar and salt to enhance the flavor of our bread. Now, I know what you're thinking - "Why do I need to add sugar if I'm not making any sweet breads?" But trust me when I say it's a game-changer.

Now that we have all our ingredients ready, let's mix everything together to create our dough. We'll be using a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment to make the process as easy and efficient as possible. Once our dough is mixed, we'll knead it for about 10 minutes until it becomes smooth and elastic.

Now that we have our dough kneaded, let's move on to the shaping stage. We'll be dividing our dough into small balls and then flattening them slightly to create the characteristic shape of a Hokkaido milk bun. Make sure to handle your dough gently to avoid developing too much gluten, which can make the bread dense and heavy.

Once we've shaped our dough, let's move on to the next step - proofing. We'll be placing our shaped buns in a warm and draft-free place to allow them to rise and develop their signature softness. This is the most important part of making Hokkaido milk bun bread, so don't skip this step!

Now that our buns have proofed, let's move on to the final step - baking. We'll be placing our buns in a preheated oven at 375°F for about 15-20 minutes or until they're golden brown and soft.

And that's it! That's how you make Hokkaido milk bun bread from scratch. I hope you enjoyed this recipe as much as I did, and I encourage you to try it out for yourself. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and hit that notification bell so you can stay up-to-date with all the latest recipes and cooking tips.

Thanks for watching, and happy baking!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en(lively music)- Hey everyone.Welcome to Pai's Kitchen.I am making my very firstbread recipe of the show,but not any kind of bread.I am making Asian-stylefluffy, light as cloud bread.Now in Asia, they like tocall this Hokkaido milk bun,not because I'm using milkfrom Hokkaido or anything.That's just the name that they use.There is a lot of milk in the recipe,which is one of thesecret to its fluffiness.Now if you have beenintimidated by bread baking,I get you, I've been there, but trust me.This recipe is very forgiving.Give it a go.I think you're going to have success.So, let's get started.So, the very first thing I've got to makeis what's called a milk roux,or tangzhong in, I believe, Chinese.This is the secret to the fluffinessand softness of the bread.It's super, super easy.Okay, it's just twoingredient, milk and flour,so I got here some whole milk.Wee!And into this I'm gonna add some flour.And I'm using bread flourbecause we are after all making bread.Bread flour is high in gluten.It's gonna allow you tocreate that chewinessof the bread.So I'm gonna give this a whiskto make sure I get rid of any flour lumps.Now I'm gonna turn this on.And once I turn the heat on,I wanna be stirring all the time.Once the milk starts heating up,it starts getting thicker.That's exactly what you're going for.Oh, look at that, look at that.And once it's super thick like this,basically, once it'snot getting any thickerthan where it's at,turn off the heat.So you might be thinking,\"What the heck is she doing?\"I thought we were making bread.\"Why is she making this goo?\"So, what's happening isin order to have fluffy and soft bread,you need a lot of moisturecontent in the bread.But if I were to add all of that milkinto my dough straight,the dough would be so wetand I couldn't really handle it, right?But by making a roux,you've turned the liquid milkinto this thick paste,and so I am now able toforce this much liquidinto the dough,without making the dough too wet.Brilliant, right?And this is a secret for alot of Asian style bread.When I found out about it, it's...It's amazing.So that's it!So now my tangzhong isstill a little bit warm.I'm gonna add it to myliquid ingredients here.So I've got some evaporated milk.And you can use regular milk.I just find evaporated milkis like extra milky milk.(laughs)It's richer and more delicious,but, totally, regular whole milk is fine.No skim milk though.No skim milk.And this just helps it cool down,so you don't have to sit there and waitfor this paste to cool down.Eggs.Well, egg.This is one egg.Give that a quick stir.Again, don't worry about thetangzhong being still lumpy.it will get all kneaded out.Okay, so I am using mybeautiful pink machine here.You can do this all by hand.So, in here, I'm goingin with bread flour,and I have done this, halfwhole wheat, half white flour.That worked really well as well.So if you wanna make this alittle healthier, you can.So I like to always use instant yeast,instead of active dry yeast.It's just so much easier to work with.You just add it to your dry ingredients,and you don't have toworry about blooming itand all that stuff,and the results are the same.So I'm just gonna give this a quick,just mix with my handjust to get the yeast allmixed in there a little bit.All my liquids going in.So all I'm gonna do right nowis mix the dough just untilthe dry flour is absorbed.We're not gonna really knead it knead it.(machine whirring)Okay, so that's good enough.So there's no more dry flour in the mix,but the dough is still quite rough.I'm gonna let it rest atthis point for 20 minutes.And this is a process called autolyse.I think that's how you pronounce it.And this process allowshydration of the flourand for gluten developmentwithout kneadingand therefore oxidizing the dough.Because if you knead the dough too much,it actually negatively affects the flavorand the texture of the bread.So this way, you won't end upneeding to knead the bread.That's a lot of kneed!You won't need to kneadthe bread for as much time.So the bread is well-rested.We're now gonna continuethe kneading process.So I'll make sure I'll lock this first,and on low.And now, I'm going to add my seasoning,my salt and sugar.And I didn't add the saltand sugar in the beginning,because it can interferewith the autolysis.And the sugar, you can actually add more.I'm only adding a couple tablespoons.If you want this to be a sweeter bread,I found that three works really well.Four will make it distinctly sweet,so it just depends on whatkind of bread you're going for.So when you first addthe sugar and the salt,it'll kinda spin like crazy.So I just like to stop itand scrape it off the hook.and basically you wanna keep kneading.Keep kneading it until it's smooth, okay.And I like to, every minute or so,take it off the hook and just re-adjustbecause I find you get apiece that's stuck right herethat's not getting kneaded.(lively music)The bread is now relatively smooth.Mmm.I love touching dough.One very important ingredientthat we need to add,and I'm just gonna take this off the hook.I'm gonna add butter,and you wanna leave thebutter till the end.Because if you add it in the beginning,it'll interfere withthe gluten development,and your bread won't haveas much extensibility.As the machine is running,just a little at a time.And at first, it doesn'tlook it wants to be mixed.See how it's just kindalike spinning around now.Do not worry.We will fix that.Okay.I'm gonna stop that and then pulleverything off the hook,and scrape the sides a little bit.And the reason why I liketo make this bread also,that if you buy this bread,like Asian style breadfrom an Asian bakery,a lot of times they'll use margarine,and that's not good for you.It's so bad for you.It's all sorts of trans fats.If I make it, I knowI'm using real butter.It taste better, it's better for you.It will work itself in, I promise.(machine whirring)So that mess of butter eventually,with your patience,absorbs into the bread,and you've got nice smooth dough.So now I've got a big bowlfor my bread to proof in,but I wanna make sure I brushit with oil or melted butterwith a mini brush of course.I always like to finishfinal kneading by handbefore I let it proof,because, you know,I just feel like it's more evenly kneadedif I do it by hand at the end,and I just love touching dough.Like it's just hmm,so soft.So now that it's nice andsmooth like a baby's bottom,you just let this rest in that bowlthat we've greased.And we wanna turn this aroundto get it completely coated in oil,because as this rise, I wannaput plastic wrap over it.If this top part is not greased,it'll stick to the cling film.And now this just needs torest on room temperaturefor one hour or until it doubles in size.If it's really cold where you are,it might take a little longer.If you don't have time,you can also let it doa slow cold fermentation in the fridge.That means you cover it,put it in the fridge,and then just continuewith the recipe over night,so tomorrow, okay?Woo!Look at this bread.So it's been about 15 minutes on my end,because it's really warm in this place.I find bread baking just so satisfying.You see that and you'relike, \"Oh, that worked.\"Okay, so now what youwanna do is take it outand degas it.Press all the air out of that.So at this point, we'reat the shaping stage.And you can shape this towhatever shape you want.You can do free-form buns,you can put them in loaf pans,you can put them, anything.What I'm gonna do is I'mgonna do pull-apart buns.So I'll put buns in a round cake pan,and then when you go to serve it,people can pull apart.I just find the pulling apart of bunsone of the most satisfying things ever.For my eight-inch round cake pan,I can put eight buns in here,and then I'll end upwith three buns left overthat I will then bake as free-form buns.Okay, so you'll just have to workwith whatever size pans you've got.So each bun is going to be about 65 grams.So I'm gonna just weigh each one.67!I'm good at this.All right.You wanna form each bun intoa bun.(laughs)So I'm gonna just sortof press everything down,and then gather the edges.And then by doing this,what you create is a smoothskin on the other side.And then what I do isI grab it with my hand,and I pull it.And my pinky is sortof dragging the bottom,and then you get thisnice little cute bun.Look how cute that is!And that's all you do,and then you pop it in your cake pans.Yey, and look at mybeautiful flower-shaped buns.So these will need to proof again.This time I find ittakes slightly less time,45 minutes should do it.But again, if it's colder it'sgonna take a little longer.Meanwhile, preheat your ovento 375 degrees Fahrenheit,and I'll see you in a little bit.Look at my bread,and it's puffed up.It's ready to go into the oven.So I'm going to stick it in,and then I'm gonna justreduce the temperature to 350,and that's gonna bake for...The free-form will bake for about 15,and the cake pans willbake for about 20 to 25,and that's it.And then you'll havesoft, fluffy, white bread.Mmm.Look at this.Look how beautiful these are.I'm gonna flip it out.It's still pretty hot.Ahh!Ta-dah!Whoop!I don't like to let itcompletely cool in the pan,because I find thebottoms are to get soggy.Once it's got, like, five minutesflip it out onto a rackand let it cool completely,but I wanna show you this.Look at this texture of this bread.Oh yeah.Look at that.Look how soft and fluffythis texture looks.I mean you can just tellthat's good stuff, right?Look at that.Smells so good, so buttery.It's still warm.Oh it's likewhite bread perfection.It's so soft, but at thesame time chewy and buttery.Just a hint of sweet.Two table spoons of sugarwill give you a neutral breadthat'll work in savory,sort of like as a dinnerroll or a sandwich,or as a sweet bread.You wanna fill it with something sweet,so good.Now, this is actually areally, really good base doughif you wanna startfilling it, wrapping it,turning it into all sortsof different cool creations.And yes, I will have something coming up,so definitely stay tuned.This is super useful dough.But seriously, if I just have this,oh, maybe dip it in some condensed milkor dip it in my pandan custard.Ah, perfect.So the recipe, as always,will be on PaisKitchen.com.When you make it, send me a photoon Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.If you haven't subscribed to the channel,make sure you do,so you don't miss an episode.Make sure you also clickthat little bell iconso you get a notification of new videos.And if you love the show,you wanna support us,check out the Patreon linkin the description below,and I will see you next timefor your next delicious adventure.- Show me the buns again.- It's so squishy!\n"