This Japanese toast is more flavorful and fluffy than your average white toast. It’s a bit sweeter as well, so with some jam or jelly it’s almost like a dessert. It also makes great sandwiches, since the fluffiness allow for the bread to envelop the sandwich fillings. It’s important to have a sharp bread knife while cutting this bread.

This recipe uses the yudane method for the dough. It’s really simple, but it does take quite a bit of time, as the yudane has to rest for a couple hours.. The dough is rolled and shaped before adding to the tin. This ensures that there aren’t any large air pockets and helps it rise evenly while baking. For the loaf, I’d recommend baking it in a tin with a lid. I made two loaves, one with a lid and one without, and I like the shape of the square bread more.

• 70 ml. water
• 220g flour
• 150g bread flour
• 225ml. milk
• 15g butter
• 5g yeast
• 20g sugar
• 10g salt

1. For the Yudane, boil the water and combine with equal amount of flour. Mix together with a wooden spoon into a sticky dough. Put the dough into a small bowl, cover with cling film and allow to rest in room temperature for 2 hours.
2. Warm up milk and butter to room temperature. Add sugar and yeast into the milk mixture. Tear yudane into small chunks and add it into the mix.
3. Combine the flour and bread flour. Start adding the flour mixture into the dough in 3-4 portions, mixing in between.
4. Knead the dough by hand for around 10 minutes, until the dough doesn’t stick to your hands and can be stretched thin without breaking apart.
5. Lightly grease a bowl. Form the dough into a ball, place in the bowl, cover and leave to rise for an hour, or until doubled in size.
6. Once risen, tip dough onto a lightly floured surface, split into two parts and roll the dough.
7. To roll the dough, roll it into a long strip, fold the ends into the center. Close tightly so that air isn’t left in between the folds. Turn 90 degrees, roll into a shorter strip and then fold it into a spiral. Place the formed dough into a greased bread tin. Cover the tin and leave to rise for 30 minutes.
8. Heat the oven to 180 °C and bake for 35-40 minutes.
9. Remove bread from the tin, and leave to cool on a wire rack.