Milk Bread Recipe for Bread Machine (2024)

Wet Ingredients + salt

• 3/4 cup 2% low fat milk (use preheat function or warm up milk)
• 1/4 cup water room temp
• 60 g unsalted butter 60g = 1/4 cup, melted
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp sea salt

Dry Ingredients

• 365 g unbleached bread flour 365g = 2 3/4 cups
• 50 g sugar 50g = 3.5 Tbsp
• 2 Tbsp milk powder
• 7 g instant yeast 7g = 1 packet = 2 tsp

For coating bowls and pan

• 1 Tbsp unsalted butter

• Melt butter in the microwave until it's fully melted (50% power 20-25 sec in microwave).

• Warm up your milk (to bath water temperature) and use room temp water and eggs - especially if you don't have a preheat function within your dough cycle.

• Add all the wet ingredients (milk, water, melted butter, egg) + SALT into the bread pan. You can add salt with your dry ingredients but I like to add the salt in this step to ensure it doesn't inhibit the yeast in anyway.

  

• Mix DRY ingredients - mix flour and sugar first in a bowl and then add to pan on top of the wet ingrdients.

• Make a little well (or a divot) in the middle of the dry ingredients and add yeast inside the well and also add milk powder (I usually add it in the corner of the pan).

  

• Put the bread pan in the machine with all the ingredients in and start a full Basic Dough cycle. See above for details of my machine's dough cycle - it basically takes 1 hr 50 min total of preheating and proving twice. If you don't have a dough cycle, you can use a stand mixer by following steps in my regular milk bread recipe. After the dough cycle is complete and finished proving, your dough should look something like the bottom pic in the picture. Top pic is how the dough looks like at the start of the kneading process. So just be patient!

  

• When the dough is done (1), punch it down (2) and then take the dough out of the pan onto a granite or wood cutting board (4) and divide into 2 equal size dough (5). Sprinkle some flour on the surface and knead each dough a few times then shaping it tightly into a ball (7). IF you have custom rise function THEN nestle each dough ball back in the bread pan next to each other (8) and let the dough balls rise in the machine for 30 min. IF there's NO custom rise function in your machine, you can put each dough ball into separate bowls, cover with plastic wrap or towel and let it rise in warm location or 100℉ oven for 20 min.

  

• Once the dough has risen, transfer the dough one at a time on a smooth surface (granite or marble works well), sprinkle surface very lightly with flour and also coat the rolling pin lightlly with flour. Roll out one dough ball into a thick rectangle about 12 inches long and 4-5 inches wide. Roll the top of the dough (3 inches) down and then fold the bottom up about the same amount, resulting in a square-like dough shape. Roll it into a log, starting from one end of the square until you have a roll all rolled up.

  

• Lightly butter the sides of the bread pan and nestle the 2 logs down in the bread machine pan like above.

• Put pan back in the bread machine and set it to rise for 1 hr or until the top of the dough is up about 70% height of the pan. Again, if you don't have custom rise function, let dough rise in the pan at room temp or in 100℉ oven for 40 min.

  

• We are ready to start baking! Bake for 50 min. Select the crust to your preference. I usually set crust to medium. Optionally, for some shine, brush the top with some milk or egg whites before baking. Note that bread baked in the bread machine won't have the same golden brown top like you get in the oven. BUT, believe me, the taste and texture is just as good as my original milk bread recipe!

• Tangzhong OR Dry Milk Power - to make this lovely feathery light and fluffy milk bread, you either need to make and add Tangzhong or use dry milk powder. The milk powder helps the bread to rise higher and easily. I tested both ways and they come out equally yummy! The recipe uses milk powder but you can just use Tangzhong instead and reduce the liquid accordingly. Basically, take out 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup milk and 22g flour and make Tangzhong with it. Check my original Milk Bread recipe for more info.
• Make sure liquid and butter is not cold - yeast needs a warm environment to become active so either warm up your liquid before adding to machine or use the preheat function to ensure things are warmed up first.
• Instant Yeast vs Active Dry Yeast - If possible, use Instant Yeast because Active Dry Yeast needs to be activated in warm water first and takes a bit longer to rise when compared to instant yeast. I usually use SAF Instant Yeast but you can use any brand.
• NUTRITION - I calculated about 14 slices for 1 loaf and so the nutrition is per slice. if you want the calories for the whole loaf, just multiply the current values by 14.