The Cocoanut

For some reason, I wanted this bread to evoke memories of Malaysia, to the point where it would serve as a tribute to my mum and grandma, both of whom really enjoy the pleasure of soft, white bread. Southeast Asians have a propensity for soft, fluffy buns, so to replicate this texture I used a recipe for a simple milk loaf and tweaked the instructions to make it even simpler (who can be bothered with hard work these days?). The use of milk instead of water would provide a comforting tenderness to the bread which is the main goal of my second bread-making attempt.

Unlike my first bread, whose crust was thick and leathery, and whose crumb had layers of unmixed flour and tasted of excess yeast, this bread turned out very well. The crumb was dense and spongy, outlined by a perfectly formed, thin crust. The delicate, soft crumb brought back memories of eating pandan chiffon cake, a popular treat in Malaysia that simply consists of pandan flavoured sponge cake, its light airiness uplifted by the fragrant pandan aroma. To replicate this childhood experience of mine, onto a thick slice of the freshly baked milk loaf I smeared a dollop of pandan kaya, a Malaysian custard sweetened with palm sugar, with pandan juice added for aroma.

When toasted, the crumb maintains a good semblance of its fluffiness, but it is the crust that undergoes a most spectacular transformation, from an anonymous outer boundary to this light, crispy, almost fragile, brown layer that simply shatters upon the first bite.

Simple Milk Loaf

500 g plain white flour*
350g milk (I used skim milk)
20 g honey, about a tablespoon-and-a-bit’s worth
25g warm melted butter
1 x 7g sachet instant dried yeast
1¼ tsp salt

In a large bowl, whisk the yeast with the milk and honey. Add the flour and salt, and combine until you get a soft, sticky dough. Pour over the warm melted butter, and mix this into the dough. Knead the dough for 10 minutes, or if you have an electric mixer like me, you can use that instead. Simply attach a dough hook and let it do all the work for you, around 7-10 minutes.

Leave the dough in the bowl for an hour to proof. After an hour has passed, punch down the dough to release all the carbon dioxide. Transfer the dough to a loaf tin, and let it proof for another hour. The dough will rise again to about twice its size, and this time you want all that gas inside to remain. At this stage, I like to brush the top of the dough with water and sprinkle poppy seeds. This is entirely optional, and I only did it because I happen to have a jar of poppy seeds in the pantry.

Set the oven to 210ºC, and when hot enough carefully place the dough into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 180ºC and bake for another 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is dark brown. Remove from the tin, and leave to cool on a wire rack.

*I used all purpose flour, because that’s what I had at home. However, you might want to try using strong white flour or bread flour, which are more glutinous and will ‘jump’ over the top of the tin much more than normal flour.