MILK BREAD

MILK BREAD

Hai,

If you love baking, pls don’t stop in just making cake and cookies. Try your own bread. Trust me baking a bread is quite fun and when you get it perfectly defiantly you will be overjoyed.

Making a bread needs little practice and much study about your ingredients quality ,oven temp and weather conditions. So don’t expect your first trial bread to be perfect. I actually throw out my first couple of trials bread. First time the bread was full of yeast odour and awful . Even my second trial was a failure. Then after 3 attempts by bread baking turned awesome and it was full of fun.

Yeast quality plays a important role in bread baking. Buy good quality yeast to make your bread perfectly. Instant active yeast works wonderfully, but you can use good quality active dry yeast too.

There are few methods in making bread, this one is basic and simple method. Pls read the recipe along with notes and never skip any step.

Here is the simple recipe for All purpose flour milk bread.

RECIPE SOURCE : Desiplatter.com (she has many wonderful baking recipes pls check her website).

COOKING TIME : 30 MINS.

PREPARATION TIME : 2 hours.

SERVINGS : 12 slices.

INGREDIENTS :

Maida / wheat flour – 1.5 cups

Milk powder – 1 tblsp.

Instant active yeast – ¾ tsp

Sugar – 2 tblsp

Salt – ½ tsp

Butter – 2 tblsp

Milk – ¾ cup.

METHOD (SEE NOTES FOR ALL TIPS):

1) In a wide bowl add flour, milk powder, yeast, salt , sugar and mix well.

2) Heat milk to luke warm and add to flour mix.

3) Start mixing till you form a sticky dough.

4) Add 1 tblsp butter and start kneading the dough.

5) Knead in a wide vessel or dust your kitchen table with flour and knead.

6) At beginning the dough will be very sticky, don’t tempt to add more flour.

7) If the dough is very stiff at beginning stage, then you can add more warm milk.

8) Keep kneading for 20 mins or more till the dough starts forming a soft mass.

9) At this stage add balance 1 tblsp butter and knead for 5 mins to form a soft, non sticky dough.

10)             Grease your bowl with little butter , tuck the dough, spread little butter on top and cover it for 1 hour.

11)             In 1 hour the dough will be doubled in size.

12)             Punch it and knead for 3 mins.

13)             Roll it to rectangle disc using roller.

14)             Grease the  baking tin with little butter.

15)             Roll from one end tightly , seal the end well and place the sealed part down in baking tin.

16)             Make sure there must be enough space in baking tin for dough to proof again.

17)             Close the tin and let it rest for 30 mins.

18)             Pre heat oven to 180” C – 30 mins.

19)             Brush the dough with milk or egg wash and bake till top turns brown.

20)             Remove from oven and brush with little butter.

21)             Let the bread come down to room temperature before removing from mould.

22)             Cover with cling wrap or tight polybag and refrigerate to 5 hours before slicing.

23)             After 5 hours of refrigeration , slice and enjoy.

TIPS :

1) Luke warm is when you dip your fingers in milk in 10 seconds you should feel the heat.

2) Refrigeration is important for the bread crumbs to settle down.

3) Since I have small bread pan , I used 1.5 cup flour. For bigger pan you can double the ingredients.

4) While starting the dough must be sticky ,dry dough will be not activate gluten perfectly.

5) After kneading , take a small ball of dough and expand it to see it expanding without tearing. This ensures gluten activated perfectly.

6) At every stage dough doubles in size so make sure to use bigger vessel and bigger pan.

7) Milk wash itself gives perfect brown top , but you can use eggwash too.

8) If you are using active dry yeast , mix yeast , sugar, salt in warm milk and keep it aside for 10 mins for activating the yeast and then add it to flour and follow rest of the steps.

9) In case of wheat flour increase milk by 2 tblsp.

10) If you are using electric beater ,you can use it to knead for last 10 mins. since hand kneading gives best result, knead in hands for 15 mins and then in beater for 10 mins.

HAPPY COOKING!!

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