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Whole Wheat Sourdough Hokkaido Milk Bread
While traveling in Japan I became enamored with Hokkaido milk bread and decided to learn to bake a sourdough version of this bread. Contrary to what the name suggests, you don’t need to use milk from Hokkaido (the second largest island of Japan), although that milk is felt to be of great quality. Instead you can use any cow’s milk available to you. I tried Melissa’s refined flour sourdough version of this bread not too long ago, and that got me addicted. The milky-sweet, fine and shreddable crumb melts in your mouth and keeps you coming back for more. I didn’t see many whole grain versions of this bread anywhere I looked, so I decided to develop my own formula.
[Jump to recipe]
Making a good whole grain Hokkaido milk bread presented some challenges: how to achieve the tall loft of the bread and the fine, soft shreddable crumb with whole wheat flour, and how to minimize the sourness in the final flavor because sourness isn’t typical for Hokkaido milk breads.
Soft shreddable crumb with good oven spring
In order to attain the great rise and the feathery crumb of this bread, you need to develop the gluten in the dough until you have a windowpane, and you need a strong flour such as Breadtopia’s whole grain bread flour, yecora rojo flour, or rouge de bordeaux flour. You can also mix wheat varieties; for example, Melissa tried the recipe with an 80:20 mix of home-milled yecora rojo flour and white sonora flour.
For many of us who don’t have access to strong whole wheat flours, the addition of a small amount of vital wheat gluten (VWG) can compensate for the relatively low protein of our local whole wheat flours. The recipe will work without the addition of VWG but you may not have the oven spring to attain a very tall loaf, and you may want to decrease the milk by 10 grams or so.
This formula also uses a tangzhong, a simple roux (cooked milk and flour) which allows you to increase the hydration significantly in the dough without the dough becoming much more difficult to handle. Tangzhong makes the bread more tender and allows it to stay fresh much longer too.
The tangzhong slows down staling of the bread
Excessive sourness isn’t characteristic of milk bread, and I find it a negative in sweetened enriched breads in general. You can limit sourness from the sourdough leavening process by using a stiff sweet levain. How does this type of levain impart less sourness to the bread? The acids in sourdough are primarily produced by the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and these LAB are more sensitive to low hydration and osmotic pressure than the yeast. By using a low hydration sweetened starter, we favour the yeast over the LAB and produce a levain that has proportionately more yeast than LAB than usual. This then creates a bread that has less acid than usual and avoids excessive sourness.
Strategic shaping can increase the height of the rise and show the attractive swirl in the side of the bread
This dough is very flexible. I used a small Pullman-style pan that is 9 x 4 x 4 inches but you can shape the dough into pull-apart buns, hamburger buns, sweet rolls, or even braid it.
Here is a video showing how to make this bread, including the shaping techniques that maximize the loft of the lobes.
Whole Wheat Sourdough Hokkaido Milk Bread
Hokkaido milk bread is soft and delicious with an amazing feathery crumb. Usually made with refined white flour, this recipe makes a lofty and soft milk bread using whole grain wheat flour for more nutrition and flavor.
Ingredients
The levain and dough volume amounts are approximations only. Use the metric weight if possible.
Overnight Stiff Sweet Levain fermented at 76-78°F
Tangzhong, prepared the night before and refrigerated
Final Dough
Pre-bake Wash
Post-bake Wash
Instructions
Sweet Stiff Levain
Tangzhong
Final Dough Mixing and Bulk Fermentation
Shaping and Final Proof
Baking
Photo Gallery
Shopping List
Stone Ground Whole Grain Bread Flour
Yecora Rojo Whole Grain Flour
Rouge de Bordeaux Whole Grain Flour
Sourdough Starter (Dry)
Mockmill 200 Grain Mill
Pullman Loaf Pan & Cover — Small
Diastatic Barley Malt Powder
Breadtopia’s Choice Kitchen Scale
$18.00Whole Wheat Sourdough Hokkaido Milk Bread