I’m after that Japanese shokupan.
I adore my beloved Japanese grocery’s fluffy loaves of bread, but why buy a ホームベーカリー if you’re not after having an unlimited supply of 食パン?!
Two days later, this one is still very very acceptable and might be the closest I’ve gotten so far – and no yudane in this one! More interestingly, I used my laser thermometer to take some temperature measurements!
First, the recipe:
| recipe: basic white bread, with errors! | source: zoujirushi BB-HAC-10 manual | |
| H2O | 182 g | |
| bread flour | 240 g | |
| AP flour | 0 g! | |
| sugar | 1.5 tbs | |
| dry milk | 2.5 tbs | |
| salt | 1 tsp | |
| butter | 1.5 tbs | |
| yeast | 1 tsp | |
| mode: soft course | hydration: 75.8% |
Here’s a summary of the method:
| Duration (min) | Description | Approx Temp |
| 14:00 | The add beep sounds! | 83.7 F |
| 18:57 | Kneading nearly finished | 84 F |
| 48:52 | Bulk ferment | 81 F |
| 19:00 | Quickly shaped dough into two balls, could tell it was starting to heat | 82.7 F |
| 20:00 | Second rising complete, stirdown, and quickly shaped the dough for shokupan | 87.7 – 91 F |
| 25:00 | Third rising over and baking begins. | 98.6 F |
| 15:00 | baking | 110 F |
| 15:00 | baking | 193 F |
| 15:00 | bread finished! | 264 F |
As this post shows, there can be a big difference in the thickness of the the crust and fluffiness of the crumb when it’s shaped. Shaping organized the crumb of this bread in a way that created the fluffy layers I’ve come to expect from shokupan and I didn’t even do a thorough job of shaping because I wanted to preserve the air bubbles. It absolutely improved the crust which was much nicer and thinner.
I will be making this again immediately.