Hokkaido Milk Dinner Rolls ❤️ Soft, Feathery Shred ❤️ Poolish Method

Ever since I posted my note on bread glazes ("What to Brush on Bread Tops?"), many fellow bakers have asked for the dinner roll recipe I used in that test. Let's walk through it today.

I usually scale my Pullman loaf formulas to fit my baking pan. Sometimes I use the Tangzhong Hokkaido formula, sometimes my all-purpose milk loaf formula. For this batch and the previous test, I used the Poolish Hokkaido Milk Bread formula.

🍞 Ingredients: (for my 26x26x6cm square baking pan)

🎈 Poolish: Bread flour 80g, water 80g, instant dry yeast 1.5g

🎈 Main Dough: Bread flour 320g, 1 egg (about 55g), heavy whipping cream 70g, milk 90g (hold back 15g to add gradually), milk powder 15g, salt 3g, sugar 60g, instant dry yeast 3.5g, softened unsalted butter (at room temperature) 25g.

🍞 Instructions:

1️⃣ The night before, mix the poolish ingredients until smooth, cover tightly, and ferment in the fridge overnight.

2️⃣ The next day, place all of the poolish and all main dough ingredients except the butter into the mixer bowl. Mix on low speed for about 4 minutes until a thick membrane forms. Add the softened butter and mix on low speed (Speed 2 on my KitchenAid 8-quart stand mixer) for 2 minutes, medium speed (Speed 4) for 1 minute, Speed 3 for 2 minutes, and Speed 2 for 6 minutes. Tear off a piece of dough to check that it stretches into a thin, translucent windowpane. Shape into a tight ball for the first proof (bulk fermentation).

3️⃣ Once the dough has doubled in size, gently degas the large air pockets and divide into 16 equal pieces. Shape each piece into a tight ball with the seam pinched underneath, and arrange evenly in the baking pan. Cover with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap for the second proof.

4️⃣ Proof until 1.5 to 2 times in size. Dust the tops with a little bread flour, or brush with egg wash or milk depending on the finish you prefer (see the last photo for a side-by-side comparison from our glaze test). This time I dusted with flour.

5️⃣ Bake at 190°C for about 22 minutes, tenting with aluminum foil partway through as needed.

❤️ Baker's Tips:

1. If room temperature is warm, chill the mixed dough (before adding butter) for a 30-minute autolyse.

2. Adjust the milk amount according to your flour's absorption rate.

3. Adjust baking temperature and time based on how your oven runs.

4. If you did not prepare a poolish the night before, you can make these rolls using my all-purpose direct-method milk bread formula.

5. 60g of sugar may look high, but I do not recommend reducing it. Divided across 16 rolls, it is under 4g of sugar per roll and gives a pleasant, balanced sweetness. Only reduce it slightly if you strongly prefer unsweetened bread.

6. If you like dried cranberries, raisins, or walnuts, fold them in on low speed at the very end of mixing to make fruit and nut dinner rolls.