I probably would never have found this wonderful recipe were it not for my friends Cathy, Nancy, and Kayte. They’d all made this bread and raved about it on Twitter. I was starting to feel like I was missing out on something so I asked for a link to the recipe and got to work!
As bread recipes go, this one is super simple. It’s fairly similar to a few other basic bread recipes I’ve tried except it uses milk in place of water (hence the name milk loaf!). The other neat thing about this recipe is that it calls for kneading by greasing both your hands and the work surface with olive oil. I’m pretty sure it’s the only recipe I’ve seen that didn’t call for dusting the work surface with flour to prevent sticking. The olive oil trick worked perfectly for me – this dough is easy to work with and I didn’t have any issues with it sticking to my countertop or me.
All of the rave reviews I’d heard about this bread were well deserved. It’s terrific! Since I’ve started making bread more regularly I’ve found the ultimate test for me is whether I can make a tasty grilled cheese sandwich with the bread and this loaf passed with flying colors! Sadly, the loaf is already gone so I need to get into my kitchen and bake another one soon!
Milk Loaf
350 g (12 oz) whole milk, at room temperature, plus extra for brushing
20 g (3/4 oz) golden or maple syrup
250 g (9 oz) plain white flour (plain = all-purpose)
250 g (9oz) strong white flour (strong = bread flour)
1 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
25 g (1 oz) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
olive oil, for greasing
flour, for dusting
Preheat oven to 410 F.
Place the yeast, milk and syrup into a large bowl and whisk together. Add the flour and salt and mix with your hands to bring together as a soft, sticky dough. Pour the warm melted butter over the dough and mix into the dough with your hands. Cover the bowl and leave to stand for 10 minutes.
Grease your hands and a flat clean surface with olive oil. Remove the dough from the bowl and knead for ten seconds, then form the dough into a smooth round ball. Wipe the bowl clean and grease with olive oil, then return the dough ball to the bowl and leave for a further ten minutes.
Repeat this ten-second kneading and resting process every ten minutes twice, then leave the dough to rest for 30 minutes.
Grease a deep 5 x 8 inch loaf pan and dust with flour. Divide the dough into two equal pieces, shape into two balls and place side-by-side into the loaf tin. Cover with a cloth and leave to rise for one and a half hours, or until almost doubled in height.
Brush the top of the loaf with a little milk and place into the preheated oven to bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 F and bake for a further 25-30 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is a shiny dark brown and the loaf has come away from the sides of the tin.
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It looks like the perfect loaf, Id love some with butter, lightly toasted!!
I’m so glad you tried the Milk Loaf and that you liked it (I always feel responsible…) This loaf is the most fun to make! So easy and kneading on olive oil surface is brilliant. I use it for other bread now.
If I can figure out the yeast conversion, I think I’ll give this a try.
Thanks for the shout out…we knew you would love it. I made it originally just to shut Nancy up…LOL…just kidding, but she kept raving about it and I kept thinking, “Okay, I will make it so that I can say I made it and she will be happy with that.” Now you can’t shut me up about it! LOL. This is the easiest most wonderful tasting bread for sandwiches, toast, and grilled cheese! I cannot literally keep enough of it in the house with the boys. So, hats off to Nancy…and now I always listen when she talks and raves about something, I figure she knows a thing or two! Your loaf looks gorgeous inside and out! Such fun cooking/baking with you.
Yay! So glad that you made it and blogged about it so that now the whole world will know about it! I was really glad to hear about this one from Nancy. It is really the perfect white bread. So easy to make and so delicious! You are right – this makes a killer grilled cheese sandwich (in fact, I think I need to bake another loaf!) Your bread looks perfect.
It looks perfect. Love the texture. I learned about the (olive) oil trick from my friend a while back (she bakes a lot of bread). It works great. I even use that trick with sticky cookie dough that needs to be rolled into a log, like biscotti or the SMS cookies we made. For cookie dough, I use canola/vegetable oil.
I had milk bread at a restaurant once and have been wanting to try it at home. Yours looks fantastic!
oh, this sounds so glorious. A simple, good loaf of bread like this would make such an excellent base for all sorts of creations!
Looks great and it sounds like it’s fun and easy to make. Also, thanks for the tip on the yeast conversions!
HOW awesome is that bread?! LOVE IT.
Fantastic JOB!
I still have this one bookmarked. I was really wanting to track down some fresh yeast, but other than in bulk (1/2 lb block) I’m not having any luck. Did you use fresh or the instant conversion? It looks great!
Now I feel like I have to make it since so many have raved about it!
This looks so easy and delicious! I’m bookmarking this because I loved grilled cheese (& easy & delicious!)
That bread looks great and now I want to try some. Printing recipe!
Lovely job on the bread, Tracey! I still need to blog about mine. I actually forgot about oiling my counter and still didn’t have any trouble kneading without flour. I think there’s enough melted butter on the outside of this dough that it works anyway. And I agree–awesome for grilled cheese.
Wow. That is a seriously good looking loaf of bread. I love the texture. It looks so hearty. I wonder how it would be with whole-grain flour?
Jay – I am 99% sure you could probably sub whole wheat flour for at least half of the all-purpose flour. I think several of my friends made this recipe with white whole wheat flour in place of all-purpose.
beautiful bread. Nuff said!!
HI
Can you help me to convert to instant yeast, I am a bit confused and not good at conversion. Thanks.
Regards;
lalaland
lalaland – Sorry, the yeast conversion for this recipe was a bit of a pain for me too! I used 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast. I will probably edit the post to include this info – not sure why I didn’t just include it in the first place 🙂
Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
Regards
Lalaland from Singapore!!!