Garlic Butter Milk Bread: A Piece of Cake #51
Because "Garlic-Bread Milk Bread" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
I’ll be perfectly honest here, because I respect you, dear reader. I’ve been working on a really tasty coconut snack cake for January, but the recipe is giving me a hard time. But it’s coming! Unfortunately for Andrew, this means I’ve been forcing many, many test cakes on him for a couple of weeks. But his struggle, and your wait, will be worth it when I send a truly tasty and well-tested cake recipe later this week. In the meantime, I’m bumping up this garlic butter milk bread recipe that I’ve been so excited to share.
Milk bread starts with tangzhong; a small amount of the flour is cooked with water into a thick, jelly consistency. This method was popularized by Taiwanese cookbook author Yvonne Chen in her book 65 Degrees C. (65 degrees being the temperature that starch in flour gelatinizes). Starting with tangzhong allows for more liquid to be incorporated into the dough without it being too loose or sticky. More liquid = tender, fluffy bread that stays fresher longer.
I’ve also used a lot of yeast in these little loaves, making the dough nearly foolproof. But since we’re baking with yeast, let me just say again: don’t worry about time. Everybody’s yeast and kitchen variables are different. Go by what the recipe says you’re looking for visually.
The dough is divided into three small loaves that are rolled out, filled with garlic butter, tucked into the pan, and baked together. This is where your kitchen scale really comes in handy, to make sure your three loaves are equal. It’s not the end of the world if you have one slightly larger than the other, but there’s nothing like opening the oven door and seeing three little neighbors in a tidy, bready rowhouse.
The depths of winter is the perfect time to mess around with easy, tasty bread recipes, and this is definitely one you can mess around with if you want to. You could easily swap the filling for so many other flavors, sweet or savory. Just change up the compound butter! Try a chili crisp butter, or some homemade jam, or marmalade. For the photoshoot, I doubled the butter called for in the recipe; because I wanted to melt the extra half for dipping. An unnecessary, but delicious, move that I think you’ll want to copy. Plus, does it ever hurt to have extra compound butter in the fridge? Exactly.
