Japan’s Obsession With Hokkaido Milk Bread, Explained

This is Hokkaido Milk Bread

I know, you've probably heard a lot about bread recently, but this bread is special

It's light and feathery and it's kind of like eating a cloud

It's also THE bread in Japan. It's so important that its name literally translates to food bread in Japanese

Hi guys, I'm Alexi. I'm a Bright Trip contributor, and today I'm going to teach you about Hokkaido

milk bread as we try to make it. So Hokkaido milk bread is really important in Japan specifically

but also throughout Asia. It's the staple bread throughout the continent, and it's even the source

of one of Japan's other famous exports. The heels of the loaves are actually used to make panko

breadcrumbs. So Hokkaido milk bread is made up of eight things, flour, sugar, salt, yeast, eggs

butter, milk, and sweetened condensed milk. Check out the episode description for the full recipe

if you want to follow along. Two things really make Hokkaido milk bread special, Hokkaido milk

and shenzhong. Shenzhong is a Chinese cooking technique where you pre-cook a little bit of the

flour into a paste. This creates a gel that locks in a lot of the moisture so it can't evaporate

What you're left with is a bread that contains a lot of moisture and stays fresh for a way longer

time without the use of preservatives. Okay, we will let the shenzhen cool while we start mixing

up our other ingredients. So we're going to mix together our dry ingredients first, starting with

the flour, sugar, yeast, and salts. So we'll go ahead and get those combined. The other key ingredient

it is Hokkaido milk. And Hokkaido milk is a specialty that you can really only get in Japan

It's milk from the Hokkaido region that's just exceptionally good. It's thick and creamy and has

this slight sweetness that you don't normally see in milks. So I live in Atlanta and I definitely

cannot get Hokkaido milk here unfortunately. So what I'm going to do is combine this normal boring

supermarket milk with a little bit of sweetened condensed milk to get some of that creamy richness

that you get in Hokkaido milk, along with a touch of the sweetness

So we're going to combine this and put it in with our dry ingredients, and then we're

also going to add one beaten egg, as well as our starter

And we'll get that all mixed up. So at this point you might be understandably a little bit confused because milk and bread are just not ingredients that we typically associate with Japanese cuisine at all So how did these two things become popular

and how did milk bread become the essential staple that we see in Japanese and Pan-Asian cuisine

today? So while we make this, we're going to take a little trip back in time to answer that question

Though most of Japanese history, milk and bread were exceptionally rare. Milk was really only drank for medicinal purposes and not really as a food source

Bread, on the other hand, was first brought to Japan in the 1500s by Dutch and Portuguese missionaries

After it was introduced, bread didn't really take off. It was mainly only eaten at Christian religious events

So when Christianity was banned in Japan in the 1600s, bread went with it

Now that we've got our dough a little bit together, we're gonna add in some butter to finish off the dough

and then we're gonna turn it out onto a floured work service so we can knead it for about 10 minutes

Both foods didn't start to take off in Japan until the mid 19th century during the Meiji era

The Meiji era was a time of profound change in Japanese society

It went from being this closed, highly regulated society where small lords ruled over smaller collections

farmers in the countryside and that was really the main system of government until the Meiji era

where they modernized it very quickly to make it this really open democratic society that had a

lot of connections with the international world. The Japanese government during the Meiji era

changed everything including the food. They actually instituted a nutritional strategy to use for school children and to recommend to families and a big part of that nutritional

strategy was milk. During this period, the Japanese government established a bunch of

national dairies throughout the country to make milk production more widespread, and they even

publicized in the newspaper that Emperor Meiji drank milk twice a day to encourage citizens to

follow suit. This is also when milk bread is thought to have been invented specifically. Bread

during this era was still really considered a snack food, so that's why you see breads that are

more sweet in Japan as opposed to Western breads, which tend to be more savory and eaten as a

staple. In the 1920s, Hokkaido milk was born. Hokkaido is the northernmost island of Japan

and in the 20s, it was really the last frontier. Settlers started moving in. When they did

they realized that the area was perfectly suited for dairy farms. It has a much cooler, foggy

climate with really short summers It also the least densely populated area of Japan so there lots of space for cow farms Once the government realized that Hokkaido was perfectly suited for milk production they heavily subsidized the industry They paid for

the construction of farms, for farmers to buy cows, and they actually set up rules allowing for the

formation of milk cooperatives for the marketing and sales of milk throughout the country

Because of these incentives and because of the climate, dairy started popping up throughout

Hokkaido and Hokkaido was cemented as the primary dairy producing region in Japan. The next big

moment for milk and bread in Japan was in the aftermath of World War II. Rice, which is the

staple in Japanese cuisine, was really expensive and was rationed at the time. Meanwhile, U.S

occupying forces were importing wheat, yeast, and powdered milk. These ingredients were incorporated

into the school lunch system called kaiushoku in order to combat post-war food scarcity

Because of this, milk became a food staple for Japanese school children

In the 1950s, bread actually began replacing rice as a side for soups and fried cutlets

Meanwhile, milk was so ubiquitous that Japanese neighborhoods had their own milk bin

Both products only gained more popularity from here. In the 1970s, Japanese convenience stores, called Konbini, started carrying sandwiches

which really cemented bread as a staple of Japanese cuisine. Milk was a really, really popular seasonal drink, so it was actually a drink in the summer

kind of like ice cream. In 2011, Japanese households actually spent more money on bread than on rice for the first

time in history, and bakeries across Japan gained prominence, especially Kyoto, which

is now known for its bakeries. Hokkaido milk is used to make most desserts in Japan today, along with tofu, ice cream

makeup, and of course Hokkaido milk tea, which is Japan's answer to Taiwanese bubble tea

At one point, they even created beer milk in Japan. Oh, this isn't that beer

I just think it's hilarious that Harrison Ford did a Japanese beer commercial in the 90s

It's very this. Hokkaido milk bread was at the center of it all, as bee bread in Japanese cuisine

It earned a place in international bakeries like the Korean Paris Baguette and the Chinese Baidog

Now that we've kneaded our dough for about 10 minutes, and it's come together in this nice round ball

we're gonna rest it in a lightly oiled bowl covered in a towel for about one hour

or until it's doubled in size. One hour later. So as you can see here, we've got our nice risen dough

and the next step is gonna be for us to cut it into four pieces and to roll it out So Hokkaido milk bread actually comes in two different styles It can be in a rectangular shape called kakushoku

or it can be in a rounded domed loaf called Yamagato shokupan

I cut it in thirds. Oh! It might be a little uneven, but it'll still be delicious

So now that we have our four pieces, we're gonna go ahead and start rolling them out

Kakushoku, the rectangle loaf, you need a special loaf pan to make that

So we're going to be making the rounded version today, which just uses a regular loaf pan

We're going to go ahead and roll each of the four pieces out and tell us about the size of our loaf pan

Okay, this looks about the right size. So next, you're going to take the two long sides and fold them in about an inch like this on each side

so you have more of a standard shape. Okay, and then we're going to take the short end and we're going to roll it up onto itself

so we get this cute little pudgy roll. Go ahead and place that into your pan

Now at this point, you're gonna have your four little bread babies all squished together

in your pan. We're gonna let this rise for another 45 minutes so it can get nice and fluffy

In the meantime, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. We're gonna brush them with an egg wash so they get that characteristic bakery glisten

Then we're gonna bake them for about 30 to 40 minutes until golden brown

When you take it out, you'll have the softest bread in the world

You can thank me in the comments. So there you have it. That is how Hokkaiba Milk Bread became a Japanese staple and an international

cult classic. We can thank an emperor who tried to make milk happen, a collective of

socialist cows laboring together on a milk cooperative, and an international war that

caused global trauma and devastation. Let's wrap it up with some beat roll

If you want to learn more about Japan, you should definitely check out the Tokyo Demystified

Course on Bright Trip. It covers a ton of topics including ramen, how to do the city with kids, and a little

bit of the history of this fascinating and truly massive city. There is a ton of information in this course, so check it out at this link

You can also find the link in the description for more information. I hope you enjoyed this video

If you made Hokkaido milk bread, drop a comment to let me know how it went. And make sure to subscribe for future videos like this

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