Leopard Milk Bread Recipe By French Baker (2024)

FAQs

Why did my milk bread come out dense? ›

Why is my milk bread dense? If your milk bread is dense, mostly likely, the dough is under-kneaded. The dough needs to develop enough gluten to expand and become soft and fluffy. A sure way to ensure that the dough is kneaded enough is using the window pane test.

What is milk bread's main difference from traditional bread? The only liquid used in milk bread is milk. In most yeast bread recipes, the liquid is usually water. There are also no eggs in most yeast breads.

All it takes is a small amount of dough enhancer per loaf to create a much lighter and fluffier result. Using a dough enhancer like Vital Wheat Gluten works to improve the texture and elasticity of the dough and elongate the strands of gluten. Doing so allows more room for the gas in the dough to develop and rise.

The dough was under or over proofed. This is the most common reason for dense bread because it can be hard at first to determine when dough is ready to bake. But both under and over fermenting can cause dense bread.

While underworked dough can simply be fixed by a little more kneading, severely overworked dough cannot be fixed. Instead, the overworked dough will result in a hard loaf that will likely not be eaten. It's important not to overwork your dough and continually check for overworking throughout the kneading process.

Give the bottom of the loaf a couple firm taps with your thumb. The bread will sound hollow when it's done. If you're new to this technique, try doing this every five minutes toward the end of baking and you'll hear how the sound changes.

Milk bread was developed in Japan in the 20th century, using tangzhong, a warm flour-and-water paste traditionally used in China to make buns with a soft, springy texture and tiny air bubbles. Surprisingly, milk bread with an incomparable crumb and buttery taste is a snap to make at home, using supermarket ingredients.

I've seen three major reasons for bread to come out too dense (other than dead yeast). The first is that you need to add more liquid. When you're mixing the dough, if the dough feels tight/tough, add some additional liquid. A wetter dough will result in a more open, soft crumb.

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

The usual reason why bread becomes too dense is due to using flour with low protein content. When your loaf is spongy and heavy, you might have also put too much flour into it or made the dough in a cooler or too warm setting.

Does milk make bread dense? ›

The fat and lactose in milk help with tenderizing the crumb of the bread making it softer and sweeter. The crust of the bread also gets more caramelization.