Yakatate!! Japan(ese Milk Bread) Chapter 2
Because I wasn’t too satisfied with the results of last time’s baking, I decide to try making Japanese Milk Bread again. This time, I played it safe and used bread flour instead of a mix between all-purpose flour and bread flour… The difference between all-purpose flour and bread flour is that bread flour contains more wheat protein, which, when added to water, forms gluten. Gluten is a protein that contributes to the chewiness and elaciticity of the bread–kneading the dough helps facilitate gluten formation and also makes the gluten molecules link together, creating a gluten matrix that shapes the bread. The gluten matrix also traps CO2 bubbles formed by the yeast and allows the bread to rise.
So, yes, gluten is quite important! Anyhow, here’s the dough, after it’s been kneaded. As you can see, it’s a lot less sticky than last time. Using tons of bread flour also made the dough a lot easier to knead, because it stopped being sticky quite fast.
Looks much better than last time! The dough didn’t poof up as much as expected after I baked it. There’s probably something that I did wrong again, but it smells amazing so I’ll let it pass for now.
This time, the bread wasn’t as crumbly as the first attempt. It also didn’t taste as buttery as last time even though I used about the same amount of butter, which is a good thing.I’ll call that an improvement! However, it’s still not as soft and fluffy as it’s suppoesd to be. Whatever. It’s delicious, and that’s what matters, right? Final Verdict: 9/10, bread is too hard to make…
