Have you ever eaten Shokupan, the Japanese milk bread? You must try it! It’s the delicious, soft and fluffy white bread loaf that you can get in Japan. The golden brown crust and soft white inside make it irresistible. It is amazingly fluffy and stays moist for longer than ordinary bread because of the Yudane method.
Why is Japanese Bread So Fluffy?
Why is Japanese bread so soft and fluffy and has the mochi-like texture? The answer is because of the “Yudane” method. The Yudane method makes the bread pillowy soft and fluffy and also keeps the bread from drying out quickly. This is because the heated gelatinised starch in the flour keeps the moisture inside the bread.
What is the Yudane Method?
Yudane is made by mixing bread flour and hot boiling water. Adding hot boiling water gelatinises the starch. The gelatinised starch not only allows the starch to take in more water, but also increases the sweetness of it. Therefore by adding Yudane to a bread dough (the yudane method), you can make soft, moist and sweeter bread which lasts longer.
Yudane vs Tangzhong roux
- The Yudane method originated in Japan and it became widespread and the popular way to bake bread in Asian countries when Yvonne Chen introduced “Tangzhong” roux as a secret ingredient to bake the super soft and light Japanese milk bread in her book called “Bread Doctor”.
- Yudane ratio of flour and water is usually 1:1 whereas “Tangzhong roux” is made by 1:5 ratio of bread flour to water. The Tangzhong mixture is made by heating up to 149°F(65°C) then cooled down to room temperature and added to the bread dough. I will explain how to make Yudane in a paragraph below.
- I have often seen this type of bread also called “Hokkaido Milk Bread” or “Japanese Milk Bread” on social media platforms such as Pinterest. Those breads are made by the same principle either adding Yudane or Tangzhong roux to bread dough.
How to Make Yudane?
We need to deduct 20% of total flour ingredients to make Yudane. So to make 1 standard loaf size dough, we need 250 x 0.2 = 50g bread flour. Yudane flour to water ratio is generally 1:1, but I found it is easier to make yudane with 1:08 ratio. Then simply add hot boiling water (should be above 194°F/90°C) and combine them with a wooden spatula. The ideal combined dough temperature will be around 122°F/50°C. When it is cooled down, wrap with a sheet of plastic wrap and leave it on the kitchen bench or in the fridge.
Ingredients
You need to gather bread flour, milk, sugar, unsalted butter, Salt and Yudane that you made the night before. Some ingredients will be further explained as I have received many questions about this.
Flour
For making fluffy Japanese milk bread, we need to use bread flour that contains around 12% of protein. I use Japanese brand Nisshin flour. You can use all-purpose flour but all-purpose flour has around 10% protein content therefore the bread will not rise as high as the shokupan made with bread flour.
Yeast
I usually use LeSaffre Saf-Instant Yeast Gold for making shokupan Japanese milk bread. If you cannot find instant active dry yeast but can find fresh yeast, you can substitute. This recipe requires 1 teaspoon(5g) of dry yeast, so you would need 5g x 3 = 15g of fresh yeast.
Butter
We need to use unsalted butter. Because the salt content of butter will affect the gluten formation. If you don’t have unsalted butter, and would like to use oil instead, you can. However it is a little bit tricky because butter is solid and oil is liquid. Generally speaking, you can replace 3/4 of the amount of butter with oil.
Milk
Some readers have asked if they can replace the whole milk with other types of milk. Using different milk does not affect the fluffiness and lightness of the bread. I tested using coconut milk and almond milk. Read the result in the FAQ.
Bakers Percentages
Some readers have asked to change the amount of the ingredients to make bigger or smaller sized bread loaves. Baker’s percentage is great because it is universal even when each country uses different units of weight. In the table below, is the bread ingredients mixing ratio. Each ingredient is shown as a % of the flour.
| Ingredients | weight | percentage |
| Bread flour for Yudane | 50g | 20% |
| Hot water | 40g/ml | 16% |
| Bread flour | 200g | 80% |
| Milk | 150g/ml | 60% |
| Sugar | 15g | 6% |
| Instant dry yeast | 3g | 1.2% |
| unsalted butter | 10g | 4% |
| Salt | 5g | 2% |
Using Cup Measurement
If you don’t have a kitchen scale, don’t worry. I have figured out measurements for using cups. However, you need to be as precise as you can. For example, when you measure 1 cup of flour, you need to spoon flour to the measuring cup, then level the surface with the back of a knife. The cup measurements are included in the recipe cards’ note section.
How to Make Shokupan Japanese Milk Bread?
This is the basic process of making the shokupan Japanese bread in 8 steps using Yudane method.
- Make Yudane the night before. (8-12 hours)
- Knead all ingredients using a stand mixer, bread machine or by hand (20min)
- The first rise (45-60 min depends on the temperature)
- Divide & roll
- Bench time (20 min)
- Shape
- The second rise (30 min)
- Bake (30 min)
Tips for Making Shokupan Japanese Milk Bread Successfully
- Start making Yudane the night before with boiling hot water. When the mixture combines the temperature of the dough should be around 122°F/50°C.
- Leaving Yudane longer will result in better Japanese bread.
- The dough rising temperature should be around 86°F(30°C). My oven has a defrost function and I set the temperature to 86°F(30°C), so I use that setting for rising. Or use a styrofoam box with 4 little cups with hot water in the corners of the box.
Other Recipes That Call for Shokupan Japanese Milk Bread
The fluffy, soft and moist Japanese milk bread is the basis of other delicious Japanese creations.
- Tamago Sando (Japanese egg sandwich). This egg salad sandwich is super popular and for good reason.
- Fruit Sando (Japanese fruit sandwich). Another popular sandwich in Japan, often made with strawberries and cream.
- Panko (Japanese bread crumbs). You can use this Japanese bread to make Japanese bread crumbs which are so crispy and perfect for using to make pork katsu or chicken katsu.
- Simply toasting the bread with some butter or jam is also great. The bread is so delicious that even eating it simply like this tastes amazing.
- You can also use this recipe to make super soft Japanese bread rolls.
How to Store the Bread?
Another tip that I can give you is that this bread is super soft, so it is better to slice it the following day. I bake the bread on a Saturday and slice it on Sunday. It will stay moist for a few days just sitting on the kitchen bench. In my household, the bread is eaten in a day or two. But if you wish, slice them and individually wrap and place them in a ziplock bag to freeze. It will last about a month.
FAQ
A: Yes, you can. But as you can see the all purpose flour did not rise well in my experiment. The texture of the bread was not fluffy, but rather it was like eating a savoury muffin. 
A: Using different milk does not affect the fluffiness and lightness of the bread. The coconut milk I used was the “Ayam Premium Coconut Milk 100 % Natural” which contains 24.3 g fat in 100ml and it is quite rich and thick. The almond milk that I used was “Sanitarium So Good Almond Milk” and contained only 1.4g per 100ml. It was very thin milk. The almond milk bread turned out fluffier and coconut milk bread was denser. Hope these experiments using different ingredients helps you make a decision as to which ingredients to use.
A: You can hand knead, however, because this has yudane in the dough which is very moist, the dough is quite sticky. Therefore, this recipe is more suitable for machine kneading. I usually use either a machine or bread mixer to knead and rise.
A: Yes you can. Some of my readers and myself have only rested the dough for about a couple hours in the fridge and the bread made with that shorter resting time of the yudane was quite successful. However, the longer you rest the yudane the better the quality of the bread.
A: My bread form size is 3.9 x 7.9 x 3.5 inch (10 x 20 x 9 cm). I bought it in Japan. This is similar to what I have from Amazon.com.
Stay Connected
This is not a popular effortless “No Knead” type of bread recipe, however, it is worth the effort to bake this bread especially if you love any Japanese baking stuff. This is the bread you must try!
If you liked my recipe for Shokupan Japanese milk bread, please rate it and leave a comment below. Also, don’t forget to follow me on Youtube, Pinterest, Facebook , Twitter and Instagram to keep up to date with all the latest happenings on Chopstick Chronicles. Don’t forget to use the hashtag #ChopstickChronicles so I can see your wonderful creations!
Shokupan 食パン
Video
Ingredients
Yudane
- 50 g Bread flour *1
- 40 ml boiling water above 194°F(90°C)
Bread
- 150 ml milk (room temperature) *3
- 15 g sugar
- 3 g dry instant yeast *2
- 10 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 200 g Bread flour *1
- 5 g salt
Instructions
- Make Yudane the night before. Place bread flour in a bowl and add boiling water and mix well. Put cling wrap and refrigerate overnight. *4
- Pour the room temperature milk into a stand mixer bowl.
- Add sugar,butter and yeast to the bowl then add the yudane as you tear it into small pieces.
- Add the bread, flour and salt.
- Attach the kneading hook onto the stand mixer and combine all ingredient on low speed 1.
- When all ingredients are combined, turn the speed up to 5 or 6 and knead the dough for 20 min.
- Roll the dough round and place the dough into a greased bowl. Wrap with cling wrap to rise for about 45 min to 1 hour at about 86°F(30°C) or until double the size.
- Use your finger, to test if the dough has risen by dusting your finger with flour and poking the dough. If the dough doesn't bounce back and the hole you poked stays there, it is ready.
- Punch the dough down and cut the dough into two equal parts with a scraper and roll them.
- Cover the rolled doughs with a wet cloth and stand it for 20 minutes bench time.
- Roll out each dough to about 5.9×7.8inch (15 x 20 cm) rectangle with a rolling pin.
- Fold the dough tightly not letting any air in towards the centre from left and right.
- Rotate the dough 90 degrees and roll it from one end.
- Spray one loaf bread tin lightly and place the rolled dough in the end of the tin facing the centre.
- Cover it with a wet cloth and let the dough rise for a second time until the dough rises to the size of the bread tin about 30 min.
- Start to preheat the oven to 365 °F(185°C).
- When the dough has risen to be level with the tin, it's ready to bake.
- Bake the dough for about 25 -30 minutes in preheated oven.
- Remove the bread from the tin and cool it down on a rack. * 5
- Whisk an egg, rightly brush over the bread dough.(Optional)
Notes
Nutrition
Chopstick Chronicles is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
This recipe was originally posted in 2017, since then had received so many questions and suggestions. So I have decided update the post and the recipe in order to answer all the questions asked. Thank you for those who left comments below and rate the recipe highly.
could you use oil instead of the butter?
Yes you can Marius 😀
Can I used olive oil to replace butter
Hi Irene, Yes you can,but I have not tried it myself so I am not sure what end result will be like 😀
My son is in Sendai for a semester abroad and mentioned having this bread so I had to try it. He said the bread was really good and I think he will miss it and all of the wonderful foods when he gets home the end of August. I hope mine turns out as good as your looks, it’s cold here today so it is taking a lot longer for each rise but I planned for that when starting it. I also put a few of the rolls in mini loaf pans to see what they look like, i increased the recipe to make more loaves. The dough is so soft and fun to work with that I didn’t want to put it in the pans.
How lovely Melisssa 😀 Sendai is beautiful city, hope your son is enjoying Japan. I am sure he will love Japanese food and when he comes back in August, you can surprise him with your Shokupan to continue to enjoy Japanese food!
Hi, I wanna try this recipe with the bread maker, what’s the weight of this serving portion listed?
Hi Ashley
For one normal size of one loaf of bread 😀
Hi. What do they fill it with the filled fluffy? Thanks.
Hi Peter, I am sorry I don’t understand your question. ?
I saw on youtube filled Japanese bread. It was the basis though, only turning up it was filled with filling. Only the Japanese language no my strength and i don’t know what it was filled with.
Thank you Peter for showing me the video however it is Chinese and I don’t speak Chinese. Sorry I can’t help much…
I’m so sorry. I did not stir the two languages once more.
No worries 😀
Hello Shihoko thank you for the recipe I would love to give it a try can you please provide the recipe in Grams instead of measuring spoons thank you From Kuwait with regards and respect.
Hi Abdullah Thank you for trying this. If you hover over metric-US customary underneath the ingredients list, and click metric, the measurement will change to grams 😀
Shihoko, your video and picture comparison using different flour and milk were so interesting and helpful, what a nice, addition, thank you. This is my first time making bread and I mixed up instant and active yeast. Other than that, I followed your recipe, weighing everything exactly as written (not typically done in u.s.). I don’t have a bread machine but used a kitchen aid mixer with a hook attachment, worked fine. Let Yudane sit overnight as directed. As one of your other reviewers mentioned, a cartoon “Sarah and Duck” from the UK makes this Shoku Pan using a cloud, since it is such fluffy bread. The images are so sweet and beautiful my two little boys begged me to make it. Google the episode if you can, it will warm your heart! Great recipe, even with my error and lack of skills, it turned out wonderfully. I have made it twice now, and I plan to make it a few more times now that I have the process down! Arigatou gozaimasu!
Hi Katie, how sweet. I am glad the shokupan turned out fluffy and made your boys happy 😀 I am interested in how typically done in U.S. Would you mind tell me more about how bread recipe written? Is it the way ingredients measured ?
Yes, Shihoko, ingredients are measurements in “cups” for dry and wet ingredients in baking and cooking in the US. This is a terrible practice for baking as a cup of baking flour can be much more than or much less than the recipe intended. Your recipe by weight is much more likely to turn out properly for anyone trying it! So thank you. We just ate some slices fresh and warm and decided to try a bit toasted with melted butter and cinnamon sugar. Excellent! Another loaf is rising to fit the baking pan as I write this! It is cold here so I put this one in the sun and on top of a heating pad, it is growing nicely! Thank you for inspiring a day of family baking, I can’t wait to try your other recipes!
I’ve made this bread twice now and it’s perfect. It comes out fluffy with a beautiful crumb and doesn’t go hard after staying out all day. It’s delicate and delicious with just some butter or if you need a pick me up it’s wonderful with jam. I’ll probably never stop making this…
Thank you Vivi for making this. This is my go-to bread recipe all time too 😀
I made this bread.. It disappeared . Family loved it. Thank you so much for sharing!
Ohhh Thank you Kiki lee 😀 I am glad that your family loved Shokupan!
I made this receipe and it’s perfect, the bread is moist and fluffy. I live in japan and it’s the same as my favorite bakery ☺️. Thank you very much for that.
Thank you Myriam 😀
wow, thank you for posting this! i am definitely going to make this with my son. We watch the show “Sarah and Duck” and there was an episode called “fluff bread” where the little Japanese boy talked about Shokupan, and my son wants to try it. the bread looks amazing…. and you would probably get a kick out of the episode, they try to make shokupan using a rain cloud, very cute … will be trying your recipe soon
Hi Karen, how cute! I have not seen Sarah and Duck but I am sure your son will love Shokupan 😀
Hi, I want to try and make this but I’m not sure if we have bread flour here in NZ? Is it called something else-high grade flour? Thanks!
Hi Liling, The bread flour I use contain 12% protein. If the flour has 12 or above, it would be good to use.
Hi, Shihoko
If I want to knead by hand, will you recommend the butter to be added later also?
I had tried another shokupan recipe almost similar with yours but whenever I tried to double the recipe, the exterior doesn’t come out as snooth as if I only bake one recipe. I proof the dough inside my oven (without turn it on) and put hot water in a small basin to make the oven warmer.
I will absolutely try your recipe. I admire your patience answering all questions since last year. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Thank you Maria 😀 for reading my blog. Yes I will recommend the butter to be added later because if you add butter early on, it prevent the dough create gluten.
It is 2019 and I am decided to try again making my own bread, I love shokupan and since the only bread I have succeded before is hamburguer buns, this is a good start. I am now done with kneading, hope it raises well.
Hi Sofi, Thank you for trying this and hope your Shokupan turns out fantastic 😀
Tried this recipe kneading by hands, not too sure if I kneaded too little, but my bread seemed to be more compact than the above pictures. Still tasted good, but really want it to be lighter and fluffier… also sides were slightly over cooked i think.. with 185 at 30min
Hi G. Thank you for trying this and your feedback. If it over cooked, next time you may need to bake for less time as everyone’s oven is different.
Hi Shihoko San,
I just found your website a few days ago. And I can’t stop myself from reading everything and try one recipe each day. Last night I finally made this shokupan and the result is unbelievable fluffy and I can say that this bread is the best bread that I ever tried. Arigatou..
Can’t wait to try other recipes 😍
Hi Efa-san. You are welcome and thank you for your kind words. I am glad that your bread turned out fluffy and you loved it. Happy cooking 😀
I tried this today and it did not rise enough. I’m in the USA, perhaps I should use a little more yeast? I used a bread maker to knead the dough.
Hi Colette, room temperature affect too, maybe you needed longer raising time? I usually use bread maker to knead the dough too 😀
I will try again! I put it next to a warming oven so I think it should have been okay. My overall dough seemed too moist too so I will see.
Second try rose much more and is looking good. Tsugi wa shikakui katachi or challenge shitai kedo, kono recipe o double shitara seiko dekirukashira? Katsu sando o tsukuritaino desu.
Colette さん 成功することを 願っています。カツサンド ができると 良いですね。Please let me know how it went.
I tasted my 2nd attempt today, while it rose much more, it still was more like a dinner roll than shokupan.. Meaning that stretchy fuwa fuwa texture wasn’t there. It’s soft but still a little more dense than yours. I did notice my loaf pan is less deep than yours and I used a glass loaf pan. Going to try again with double the recipe and a pullman loaf pan, but welcome any advice.
Hi Colette, may be the flour you use is different from the flour I use? I purchase bread flour from a local Japanese grocery so the flour is Japanese. It is called 強力粉。
Could I double the recipe and bake a larger loaf. Love the texture and flavour!
Yes Beryl, have a look the comment above Patrick’s comment 😀
Hi.
I tried it n it was delicious. I did eggwash it before going in the oven. N once cook, brush some melted butter on it. It have a shiny appearance but still soft to the touch. Im from perth, australia.
Konnichiwa Hans 😀 That’s great! Thank you for reading my blog from Perth! It is great idea to make the bread shiny. This bread deserve it 😀
hello.
i am Monica from Indonesia
can i replace the sugar?with sweetener?
i’d like to make this recipe for diabetic people so they can’t consume white sugar
but they can consume sweetener
thank you
Hi Monica, I think you can but you may need to adjust the recipe 😀
Made another batch of this recipe to be eaten nexr morning. The family love the texture of it. Cut a thick slice n made a “toad in the hole” with eggs.
Good recipe so far, and without eggs. Most japanese milk bread recipe uses
You are welcome Hans. I am glad that your family like it 😀
Ours was still fresh after 4 days. My favourite recipe! Could you make one with a sourdough starter recipe and share it with us? 😅😉
That’s fantastic Pam. I am trying to make one with natural yeast but don’t know when I can post 😀 I am working on it.
Can’t wait! 🤗 btw, I notice once I bring my loaf out of the oven, the bread deflates and the skin is not firm but goes soft..do you know why?