Say hello to ultimate vegan recipe for soft, fluffy, Asian-style bread (also known as Hokkaido milk bread) with a tender-but-chewy texture. Unique due to its water-roux starter technique, this recipe makes for an addictive vegan sweet bread that you can just tear layer by layer. Perfect with butter and jam for breakfast.

The squishy green dough can be baked inside a loaf tin, formed into pull-apart buns and even turned into breakfast muffins.

How to serve Vegan Pandan Hokkaido Milk Bread

The subtle sweetness and pandan flavour of the milk bread is the perfect partner for pillowy-soft bread and makes it hopelessly addictive. One bite of vegan milk bread is never enough. Pair with jam, butter or a cup of coffee for a tea-time treat. Or tear chunks off whilst it’s hot out of the tin and devour. I won’t tell.

What is Tangzhong?

The process of making Vegan Pandan Hokkaido Milk Bread begins with a method called tangzhong . This is to first cook a small amount of the flour (my recipe calls for 10%) with water to create a paste that is similar to a roux in French cookery. Tangzhong is a technique which has been used in Asian baking, namely in Japanese and Chinese cuisines for centuries.

The method of heating flour with water activates the starch in the flour and creates a perfectly-hydrated dough filled with tiny air bubbles. This gives the final loaf a soft, springy texture. Honestly, the tangzhong dough is extremely sticky, due to the extra moisture so it’s a challenge to knead by hand. Yet, my stand mixer is very loyal and does all the hard kneading job for me.

Making this vegan milk bread really is a magical process as well as a cathartic baking project. Kids will also love helping rolling up the dough up into spirals, too. Bodhi was mainly interested in the squishing part… Can you tell?

What is Pandan?

In South Asia and Southeast Asia, pandan is as common a flavoring as vanilla is in the West. The flavour is sweet and floral like vanilla but with a subtle, marshmallowy and grassy dimension which is difficult to describe to the uninitiated. It’s widely used in savoury cooking as well as baking and sweets. Pandan paste is easy to find in Asian supermarkets and a little goes a long way. If you’re lucky enough to find fresh pandan leaves, you can make your own pandan juice. I reduce it down to a pulp with water and strain. Also, fresh leaves are also amazing when added to a pot of steaming rice.

More Flavour Ideas for Vegan Hokkaido Milk Bread

• Omit the pandan extract for a plain vegan Hokkaido milk loaf that’s slightly sweet and perfect for PB&J sandwiches and French Toast.
• Add 1 tbsp (yes 1 tbsp) of vanilla extract to give your bread a beautiful bakery flavour.
• Grate in the zest of 2 large unwaxed lemons if you like your bakes to have a citrus hit.
• You could also spread the inside of the rolls with your favourite chocolate spread, vegan citrus curd or jam for that sweet roll finish.

Vegan “Eggwash”

My ultra-shiny egg-free glaze comes from a simple mixture of agave, coconut milk and turmeric. No yolks required! The sweetness from the agave helps the top caramelise. Bonus! The turmeric adds a hint of yellow for that eggwash feel. It’s perfect for baking. When glazing savoury pies and pastries, I omit the agave and simply use any plant milk + turmeric.

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Pandan Hokkaido Milk Bread (Vegan)

The ultimate vegan recipe for soft, fluffy, Asian-style bread with a tender-but-chewy texture. Unique due to its water-roux starter technique, this recipe makes for an addictive vegan sweet bread that you can just tear layer by layer. Perfect with butter and jam for breakfast.

Course Breakfast, Snack

Cuisine Asian, Japanese

Keyword baking, bread, eggless, vegan

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 45 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 45 minutes minutes

Servings 12

Author Sanjana

Ingredients

For tangzhong:

• 40 g strong white bread flour
• 200 ml water

For the milk bread:

• 400 g strong white bread flour
• 2 tbsp coconut milk powder
• 2 tsp pandan paste
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 125 ml full-fat coconut milk warmed to
• 80 g caster sugar
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 80 g vegan butter room temperature

For the vegan “eggwash”:

• 2 tbsp agave
• 2 tbsp coconut milk
• 1/8 tsp turmeric

Instructions

For tangzhong:

• In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the flour and water.  Stir continuously for 4-5 minutes or until the starter thickens to the consistency of mashed potato or a thick roux, about 65°C/150°F if you have a cooking thermometer. Transfer to a bowl and cover with cling film.  Allow to sit until the starter gets to room temperature.

Making the dough:

• Add the coconut milk, sugar and pandan paste to a saucepan and heat over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool at room temperature to about 38°C/100°F or just warm. Now add the yeast and stir. Set aside for 10 minutes until frothy.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together the bread flour, coconut milk powder, and salt.  Once mixed, add in the warm milk and tangzhong starter. Whisk until just combined. Switch to the dough hook attachment and knead the dough at medium-high speed for 10 minutes.
• With the mixer still running, add the soft vegan butter, 1 tablespoon at a time until fully incorporated. It will feel like a lot of butter but keep it going – it will be absorbed into the dough the longer it is kneaded. Turn the speed up to high and beat for a final 5 minutes.  Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling film. Allow to sit for 1 hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Shaping the dough:

• Knock the air out of the risen dough and knead briefly to remove any large air pockets. Divide the dough into 14 equal parts (about 90g each). Keep the cut dough under cling film to prevent it from drying out or forming an unwanted skin.
• Take one portion of the dough and roll into a long oblong, about 5cm (2") wide and 10cm (4") in length. Starting from the end closest to you, roll the dough into a log. Repeat with remaining dough.
• Place the first seven logs seam-side up in a well-greased loaf tin (size: 1800g/4lb) for the first layer and for the second layer, place the logs seam-side down. Cover the loaf tin with cling film and allow to rest in a warm place for 30 minutes, until the dough has doubled in volume.
• Preheat the oven to 175C/350F

For the vegan “eggwash":

• Combine all the ingredients for the vegan "eggwash". Gently brush on top of the risen dough.
• Bake in the preheated oven until the top of the bread is a nice golden brown. If the bread top colours too quickly, place a foil tent over it to prevent it from burning.
• Let the bread cool in the loaf pan for 5 minutes before unmolding (wearing oven gloves). the loaf should slip out easily once inverted. Allow the loaf to cool to room temperature on a wire rack.

Notes

• You can turn this bread dough into a bun recipe too. Divide the dough into 14 pieces, roll into balls, transfer to a greased pan, and bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown on top.

 

Pin it for later!

If you like this, you’ll love my recipe for Indian-Inspired Rocky Road

Love Sanjana

The post Vegan Pandan Hokkaido Milk Bread appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

I’m sorry for the long and pretentious title this week – well sort of. Usually, I like to keep recipe titles as short as possible for the sake of clarity and focus (and because I’m easily confused). Although, I think a pompous sounding title is quite fitting when describing a pompous looking lamington.

Let me introduce you to my second entry to Mr P’s Re-Inventing the Lamington competition 2011. Vegan chocolate sponge filled with pandan cream cheese and coated in a layer of dark chocolate. As if this eggless lamington wasn’t trying hard enough to please already, it’s then crowned with a shard of pistachio and salted caramel glass.

NOTE: I’ve had a few comments about this being a ‘vegan’ lamington. Let me clarify: this is NOT a vegan lamington because it’s filled with cream cheese and covered in a brick-ish layer of dark chocolate. However, I’ve highlighted that the chocolate sponge used for this lamington IS vegan. I repeat: these are eggless lamingtons using a vegan sponge for any vegan readers who want to make chocolate cake.

Regular readers will already know that one of my favourite flavours is aromatic pandan. Pandan is a tropical plant which grows abundantly in South East Asia. Pandan extract comes from pulverising the long, spiky leaves into a rice and vanilla scented paste. Pandan extract can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes and is popularly known for being used in chiffon cake. I like to use it in hot and spicy curries, thumbprint biscuits, pandan burfi and of course, chocolate lamingtons.

I’ve tried pairing pandan with so many different ingredients – usually resulting in unspeakable failure. So I stuck to the flavours I knew worked. For once.

Pandan and chocolate are super together, as are pistachios and salted caramel. I feel as if the number of ingredients in this lamington is justified by how well the flavours compliment one another. So don’t give me that look, Cynic.

It pains me to admit that my lamington sponge is never as perfect as I want it to be. Eggless sponge is tricky to get right, and I’m a woman on a mission to get it right.

Chocolate sponge is much easier to make eggless or veganise than vanilla cake because of the way chocolate and raising agents react with one another – that’s not to say I haven’t cocked it up many a time. In my baking experience, I’ve produced chocolate cakes that crumble at the touch of a finger, chocolate cakes that are so chewy you’d never want to touch a Hubba Bubba again, and chocolate cakes which could knock out The Great Khali during a friendly game of catch gone wrong.

I’m one of those people who like sweet and savoury together. Unless it’s pineapple on pizza, which is sick, twisted and entirely wrong. Moving on, this pistachio-studded salted caramel glass makes a pretty garnish and actually tastes good. You could use any kind of nuts you want, but in keeping with the green theme, I opted for emerald-like pistachios.

Shall I stop babbling now?

Dark Chocolate Pandan Lamingtons with Pistachio and Salted Caramel Glass
(serves 6-8)

Ingredients

For the vegan chocolate sponge:

225g self raising flour
120g caster sugar
70g icing sugar
70g cocoa powder
50ml sunflower oil
250 ml water
2 tsp instant coffee
½ tsp salt
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda

For the pandan cream cheese filling:

250g cream cheese
4 tbsp icing sugar
½ tsp pandan extract

For the salted caramel and pistachio glass:

150g caster sugar
65ml water
Broken pistachios
Coarse sea salt

To cover the lamingtons:

400g dark cooking chocolate (70% cocoa)

Method

1. For the chocolate sponge, sift together all of the dry ingredients excluding the icing sugar and caster sugar.

2. In a separate bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients, icing sugar and caster sugar. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and slowly combine until thoroughly mixed. Do not overwork.

3. Pour the cake batter into a greased and lined 6X8inch pan, and bake at 160°C for 35-45 minutes. Don’t open the oven door at all or for at least the first 25 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Cool thoroughly, trim if necessary and then cut in half.

4. For the salted caramel and pistachio glass, heat the sugar and water in a heavy based saucepan on a low heat. Do not stir the mixture, instead, gently swirl it around from time to time until it is caramelised. Watch it like a hawk because it can quickly burn. If it becomes too dry, add a tsp of boiling water.

5. Grease a steel tray with some oil and pour the caramelised mixture on top. Swirl it around but don’t burn yourself. Quickly scatter over pistachios and a little coarse sea salt. Allow to harden.

6. When the caramel has hardened fully (around 20-30 minutes) gently tap it with a knife to crack it into large pieces.

7. Combine all the ingredients for the pandan cream cheese and spread over one chocolate sponge. Top with the other chocolate sponge.

8. Heat the dark chocolate over a double boiler to gently melt it. Don’t stir too much.

9. Coat the cake in a layer of chocolate. Refrigerate it until the chocolate has hardened. Remove from the fridge and cover in another layer of chocolate, this time doing it neatly.

10. Allow to set. To serve, cut a slice and top with a shard of pistachio and salted caramel glass.

The post Dark Chocolate Pandan Lamingtons with Pistachio and Salted Caramel Glass appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

I have an ambivalent relationship with burfi. This milk-based Indian sweet pushes my ‘crave’ button at the strangest times… for which I resent it completely. Then when I take a bite of this dense ‘any-flavour-tastes-good’ fudge, I am a chubby six year old again. A bit like the Indian, female version of Augustus Gloop. I love to visit Indian sweet shops, with their vast arrays of burfi in every colour and flavour you can imagine. Well, almost. So you can keep your Chocolate Factory, Mr Wonka.

In my twenty-one years I’ve munched my way through a fair load of burfi and not once have I come across pandan burfi. It’s such an obviously delicious combination that I can’t believe nobody has made it yet. Have they? Enlighten me. Indian fudge and the South East Asian equivalent of vanilla combined in a mega fudge? Win.

I feel a revolution coming on.

So what if I go on to tell you it can all be done in a microwave? Would you laugh in my face and push me (Augustus) into that chocolate river? How embarrassing would it be? Getting stuck up that pipe? Good job I’m telling the truth, isn’t it?

You can make this in 10 minutes flat (plus chilling time). And everybody knows that chilling time = chilling out time so kick back, relax and enjoy this Pandan, Coconut and Chocolate Burfi at the push of a button (or two).

Pandan, Coconut and Chocolate Burfi (yields 25 pieces)

Ingredients for the pandan layer

If you’re not sure what pandan is then you can read up on it here.

3 cups whole milk powder
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 ½ tsp pandan extract

Ingredients for the coconut layer

1 ½ cups whole milk powder
½ cup sweetened condensed milk
¼ cup coconut (desiccated or fresh)
½ tsp cardamom powder
1 small pinch saffron

Ingredients for the chocolate layer

1 cup milk chocolate, chopped into small pieces
¼ cup butter

Oil to grease the tray

Method

1. For the pandan layer combine the pandan extract with the condensed milk. In a microwave-proof mix the green condensed milk with the milk powder and microwave on high power for one minute at a time for four minutes. Remove from the microwave in between these one minute intervals and stir.

2. Grease a 6X8 metal tray or thali with plenty of any flavourless oil (I used groundnut).

3. Press the pandan layer into the metal tray with the back of a spoon, making sure it’s even all over. Set aside and allow to cool.

4. For the coconut layer combine the milk powder, condensed milk and coconut in a microwave-proof dish. Repeat the microwave process as in step one, but for three minutes this time. Remember to stir at one minute intervals so it doesn’t burn. Add the cardamom and saffron and combine quickly.

5. Place the coconut mixture on top of the pandan layer and press in tightly and evenly. Set aside and allow to cool.

6. Place the chocolate in a microwave-proof bowl and microwave on high for 30 second bursts until it has melted. Remove from the microwave and add the butter. Fold the mixture with a spoon until silky. Don’t overwork the chocolate.

7. Pour the chocolate over the cooled coconut layer and allow to set at room temperature. When the burfi has set, cut it into pieces with a sharp knife.

I’m sending this recipe to Srivalli’s Microwave Cooking event, hosted by Asankhana.

The post Get your Microwave Mojo On! appeared first on Sanjana.Feasts.

I found this recipe on a website I adore and visit often; Pham Fatale. I’m sure many of you will have visited Jackie’s blog over and over just to gawk at her creative recipes and beautiful photography. This is one recipe that caught my eye months ago and I’ve been pining to try it ever since! I had to adapt the recipe slightly because her recipe uses eggs. She does suggest leaving the eggs out however she says that the cookie does crumble easily this way. Well, let me tell you that I wasn’t satisfied with lettin’ the cookie crumble so I adapted the recipe in order to stop this from happening. It was a wholly successful mission… Almost. I wouldn’t describe my recipe as a cookie recipe but more of a biscuit. A damn delicious biscuit, may I say. It was buttery, crunchy and fragrant with all of that beautiful pandan flavour. Heavenly! And oh so cute with that little chocolate button in the middle. I suggest a couple of these with a tall glass of my spiced milk. Yeah that’s right; it’s a whole new take on classic milk and cookies (or biscuits in this case!)

I cannot say how Jackie’s recipe tastes as I haven’t followed it to the letter. Although I consider my version a simplified, eggless take on her gorgeous cookie recipe! I have substituted the melted chocolate with Cadbury’s (soon to be Kraft! Shock. Horror!) Dairy Milk Buttons (nomnomnom I will eat the whole bag in 56 seconds). If you can’t find these then just put a couple of chocolate chips in the little ‘thumbprint’ when the biscuits are still hot. They will melt and come together in the same way. Enjoy! Sorry I couldn’t have provided a more detailed post- I have lots of reading to do but just couldn’t resist sharing this recipe with you! I’ll be back soon to share with you a Lamington recipe for Mr P’s competition over at Delicious Delicious Delicious. Do check the wonderful competition out!

Ingredients (makes 24 biscuits)

1 ¼ cups plain flour, sifted
1 tbsp egg replacer (such as Allergycare)
¼ cup icing sugar + 4 extra tbsp’s icing sugar
1/8 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp water
6 tbsp butter at room temperature
24 Chocolate Buttons (plus more for munching)
1 tsp pandan extract

Method

1. Combine the flour, egg replacer, ¼ cup icing sugar, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

2. Cream together the butter, 4 tbsp’s icing sugar and pandan extract. Add the butter mixture to the flour mixture and combine quickly with cold hands. If you need to add 1 tbsp water to bring the dough together then do so.

3. Wrap the Hulk lookin’ dough in cling film (plastic wrap) and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

4. Cram as many chocolate buttons into your mouth as you possibly can.

5. Grease and line baking trays (I used two) then roll your dough into 1 inch-sized balls and flatten them slightly.

6. Arrange the dough balls on your tray evenly spaced (they will spread as they cook).

7. Bake at 160 degrees C (gas mark 4) for 8-10 minutes then remove from the oven. Make ‘thumbrints’ in the centre of the half-cooked biscuits with a spoon (not your actual thumb!) I used a rounded mini measuring spoon. Return them to the oven and bake for a further 8 minutes.

8. Remove the biscuits from the oven and push in a little chocolate button or a couple of chocolate chips into the ‘thumbprint’. Allow to cool thoroughly before taking them off the baking sheet.

9. Enjoy with a glass of spiced milk!

Back to the books I go… But not without another biscuit! *Munch Munch*

Update: Check out The Little Teochew’s version of Pandan Biscuits here!

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