Milk Bread & Chicken Buns

I usually buy Paris Baguette's milk bread to make sandwiches and toast - I love the thick fluffy slices and would buy several loaves at once and freeze them so that I'd always have it on hand.  Once in a while though, it's fun to make your own bread since you can not only use the dough to make sandwich bread, but also shape them into buns stuffed with whatever savory or sweet fillings you like.  

A few years ago, I finally came across a reliable milk bread recipe for making the Asian style fluffy slices of bread I loved.  My main complaint now is that I can't find a pullman loaf pan that is as tall and wide as the kind they use commercially so my sandwiches come out smaller than I'd like - but at least they're tasty!  This bread is also great for using in this Grand Marnier French toast recipe as well.

Chinese Steamed Buns - Mantou (饅頭)

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the soft inside fluffy parts of bread.  Crust can be ok, but by and far it is always the fluffy insides that I love to sink my teeth into when eating a piece of a bread.  Chinese steamed buns, or mantou (饅頭) are like the fluffy insides of a fresh baked loaf of bread, without any of the hard or dry crusts that comes with regular bread.  Unfortunately, most of the mantou you can buy at the grocery stores here in the U.S. are always too dense or dry for my liking, and I missed the ones my mom used to make which were chewier and fluffier, with a bounce.

 

Asking my mom for a recipe though usually amounts to "just add a little of this, and some of that and mix until it looks/feels about right." So... I turned to Google Search and browsed a bunch of sites, read some comments, and chose to Frankenstein together several of the ideas.  I specifically wanted to try and make black sesame and sweet potato versions.  It took a few batches, but I'm pretty happy with how it finally came out for the sweet potato and plain versions.  The black sesame ones, alas, will still need some work (didn't help that I overcooked them and they kinda burned too - I REALLY want to make a Totoro version!!!). （。-＿-。）

My poor deformed and burned Totoros

Feel free to play with the ratios of flours.  If you like a denser feel, you can try replacing some of the AP flour with bread flour (50% AP, 25% BF, 25% CF for example).  Most recipes call for adding a bit of lard or canola oil - I chose to use butter instead, but you can replace with equivalent amount of lard/shortening or 1TB of oil.

I need to start my baking earlier for better lighting... (^^ゞ