Hotel Pullman Loaf ❤️ Master Wu Keji's Recipe

🌼 The Story Behind the Hotel Pullman Loaf

🎈 Master Wu Keji shared that a traveler once stayed at an inn and walked past the kitchen, where the aroma of freshly baked bread stopped him in his tracks. The baker inside was pulling this exact loaf from the oven. The traveler apprenticed under the master baker, learned the formula, and named it the Hotel Pullman Loaf 🎈

🍞 Ingredients: (Makes one 450g Pullman loaf pan)

🎈 Sponge (Chongzhong): Bread flour 175g, Instant dry yeast 2g, Water 75g, Milk 50g

🎈 Main Dough: Bread flour 75g, Salt 4.5g, Sugar 25g, Instant dry yeast 0.5g, Milk powder 7.5g, Egg 25g, Milk 25g, Heavy whipping cream 25g, Unsalted butter 37.5g.

🍞 Instructions:

1️⃣ First, prepare the sponge.

✔️ Master Wu's standard method: Combine the water and milk for the sponge, stir in the yeast, add the bread flour, and mix on low speed for about 2 minutes. Ferment at 26°C for 2 hours.

✖️ My easy overnight method (though I recommend following Master Wu's method first): Mix all sponge ingredients into a ball, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

2️⃣ Once the sponge is ready, its interior will show a web-like honeycomb structure. Tear the sponge into small pieces and place them in the mixer bowl with all main dough ingredients except the butter. Mix on low speed until combined, then switch to medium speed for 3 minutes. Check the dough: once it pulls into a thick membrane, add the softened room-temperature butter and continue mixing until it reaches the full windowpane stage (thin, translucent membrane).

3️⃣ Shape the dough into a tight ball (boule) and let it rest for 20 minutes. Divide into 3 equal pieces, shape into tight balls, and give them a 15-minute bench rest.

4️⃣ Roll out, coil, and place into the Pullman loaf pan. Proof until the pan is 90% full. (I didn't take shaping photos this time; you can check my shaping video or earlier Pullman loaf posts.)

5️⃣ Bake in a conventional deck/home oven at 180°C top heat and 210°C bottom heat for 30 minutes, or in a convection fan oven at 150°C for 24 minutes. Adjust temperature and time according to how your oven runs.