Super Soft Bread (Just one proofing)

Irony sets in. After taking the time and effort to learn about Artisan breads, where long fermentation is required to produce a flavourful and healthier bread, now I prefer to bake easy sweet dough breads.

On Sunday where I decided to bake an easy and fast bread loaves, I came across Victoria Bakes' post on this "Killer Toast" with just one proofing. This was the perfect recipe given the time I can spare in the morning. I agree that this was really a very soft bread when it's mixed till the window pane stage. This is a keeper for me. Please read her notes on the hydration which is really useful.
bread_soft02 Recipe for Super Soft Bread loaves, adapted from Victoria Bakes.
(Makes 2 regular loaves, where I made 1 regular and 2 half sized)

Ingredients:
520g Bread flour
6g Instant dry yeast
340g-360g Hydration (2 eggs + whipping cream + full cream milk)
60g Caster sugar (20g if making a salty toast)
4g Fine salt (12g for salty toast)
60g butter

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients, except butter, together and knead till you get a silky and elastic dough. Approximately 4 mins on low speed.
2. Incorporate butter and knead till window pane stage (crucial). Approximately 8mins on medium-high speed for me.
bread_soft01
3. Divide the dough into 8 portions, weighing about 127g each. Then roll out flat and roll up like swiss roll, and place into greased loaf pan (or non-stick). 4 portions into regular loaf pan, and 2 each into the half pan.
4. Let it rise till dough reaches 90% of height of pan, approximately 50-60mins.
5. At 50mins' time, pre-heat oven to 170C.
6. Bake in the lowest rack for 30mins, tenting the bread with foil if it browns too quickly. Where I tent it after 13mins, and continue baking it.
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Note:
  • I used 100g eggs with 80g whipping cream and topped up to 340g liquid with the full cream milk. However, upon mixing, the initial dough was not incorporated, meaning, more liquid is required.
  • I added another 20g of milk, therefore, the dough became wet.
  • After I divided the dough, I rounded it up lightly and started to roll the out flat. The dough was still a little wet. So I floured the worktop lightly to prevent the dough from sticking to the counter top. Then it was easier to roll.
  • The window pane stage took longer than other recipe to reach. But it does produce a really soft bread with visible streaks.
  • bread_soft06

7 comments:

Victoria Bakes said...
January 19, 2016 at 8:16 AM

woot! i love your window pane picture! i should direct my readers to this post for a classic pic of this... thanks for linking back

Passionate About Baking said...
January 19, 2016 at 8:19 AM

Hi Victoria Bakes,
I'm so happy you dropped by my post. Thanks to your so many wonderful recipes! This bread is really nice even after a few days!

Lilian said...
January 19, 2016 at 8:27 AM

Wow did you hand knead or use a bread maker?

Passionate About Baking said...
January 19, 2016 at 8:53 AM

Hi,
I used a mixer. That's why I gave a reference on the estimated time taken with the speed of the mixer. Not bread maker though.

Anonymous said...
February 3, 2016 at 1:51 AM

Can I substitute the cream for anything else? Perhaps more butter and milk? Thanks!

Passionate About Baking said...
February 3, 2016 at 1:13 PM

Hi,
Yes, you can just use full milk and more butter. You may omit the cream. I did that for my subsequent bakes.

omlet said...
March 7, 2016 at 12:30 AM

They will love it! It’s so yummy ; ).

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