White Milk Bread

This is my contribution in conjunction with today's World Bread Day 2009. I baked a few loaves but I particularly choose this loaf to post not because this is another Tessa Kiros's recipe (come on...no one can be sick of Tessa!). I chose this because of it's simplicity, it's rustic-look and the fact that it is a plain loaf of English white bread.

You can anytime turn this into dainty rolls to make it a finger food for adults and kids simply love petite stuffs! I like it plain because I could soak this in my usual breakfast of bread and butter with egg and Aaron could simply smear his inches thick layer of smooth peanut butter which he still hasn't get sick of. When it turned stale, just turn it into bread and butter pudding. Very versatile loaf of bread.

I think I improve a lot in terms of presentation and texture compared to the loaf of bread I baked for World Bread Day 2008. What do you think? As I've said ,I've made a couple loaves of bread this few weeks so you'll probably be seeing breads after breads in my next few post. Bread is good for you, shouldn't get sick of it and complain alright?


White milk bread or rolls (adapted from Apples For Jam, page 263, White tab)

250ml (1 cup) warm milk, comfortable to your fingers
15g (1/2 oz) fresh yeast, crumbled, or 7g active dry yeast (1 3/4 tsp)
1 tsp honey
450g bread flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
40g butter, melted

Put the milk, yeast and honey in a small bowl and stir until the honey melts. Leave it for about 10 mins, or until it begins to froth a bit. Put the flour and 1/2 tsp of salt into a larger bowl. Add the yeats ixture, the egg and butter and mix through well. Knead for 10mins or so and, if it seems sticky, just hold the bowl firmly and move the dough around with your hand, rather than add more flour.

Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave in a warm, draught-free place to rise for 1.5 to 2 hours, or until it has puffed up well.

Lightly grease a 30 x 11 cm (12 x 4 inch) loaf tin and dust it with flour. Punch down the dough to flatten it and shape it into a rough loaf of a size to fit the tin.

At this stage, you can weigh and divide it into 18-20 small dough to make small rolls. I divided the dough into 4 equal parts, roll it out into a rectangular sheet. Roll that up again from the short side up and place them snuggly into the loaf pan.

Cover with a cloth and leave in the warm place for another 45-60 mins, or until it puffs right up in the tin. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 190°C. This is optional but I simply sprinkle some flour over the loaf and put the tin in the oven and bake for about 25mins, or until the top is firm and crusty and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped. Remove form the oven, knock the loaf out of the tin and cool on a rack in a fly-free zone.

This is best sliced warm and spread with butte, but you can keep the loaf for a few days in an air tight container (not a plastic bag) for excellent toast.

makes 1 loaf or about 18 small rolls

Happy World Bread Day and have you bake a loaf of bread lately?