Hokkaido milk bread calculator
Shokupan with tangzhong: the cooked flour paste keeps the crumb soft for days.
Total hydration counts the water inside the eggs, milk and butter.
Hokkaido milk bread — shokupan — is the cotton-soft Japanese loaf built on tangzhong: a cooked flour-and-liquid paste that lets the dough hold more moisture than kneading ever could. The formula is Hungry Huy’s bread-like shokupan.
How it works
The tangzhong
Cook 6.3% of the total flour with about five times its weight of the formula’s milk and water, whisking until it thickens to a paste the whisk leaves lines in. Cool it, then mix it in with everything else. Pre-gelatinized starch binds water permanently.
The formula
Liquid arrives as 35% milk plus 15% water, backed by 4.5% milk powder; enrichment is 7% sugar, 14% egg and 16% butter, with 1.2% salt and 2% instant yeast. Knead to a genuinely developed, windowpane-passing dough — the fine, shreddable crumb depends on it.
Shaping and baking
The classic loaf: divide, roll each piece flat, fold and roll into a spiral, and set the spirals side by side in a Pullman pan (~700 g of dough). Proof until nearly at the rim, then bake at ~175 °C until the internal temperature reads ~99 °C.
Sources & methodology
Every percentage in this calculator traces to the published sources below — nothing is invented. Where respected sources disagree, the default sits inside the documented range.
- Hungry Huy — shokupan — The chosen shokupan: tangzhong from 6.3% of the flour, 35% milk + 15% water, 16% butter, bread-like 7% sugar.
- King Arthur — Japanese Milk Bread Rolls — Its milk-bread rolls run sweeter (16% sugar); both sources keep the tangzhong at 4.5–6.5% of the flour.
FAQ
How sweet should shokupan be?
Two schools: this bread-like version at 7% sugar, and King Arthur’s popular rolls at a dessert-adjacent 16%. Both keep the tangzhong small, 4.5–6.5% of the flour — the sweetness is where they part ways.
Why did my crumb turn out coarse?
Underkneaded dough or a skipped/lumpy tangzhong. The paste must be smooth and fully cooled, and the dough needs real gluten development — milk bread is one of the few home doughs that rewards kneading to windowpane.
Lid on or off?
Lidded gives the square sandwich crumb (kaku shokupan); open-top bakes a domed, slightly airier loaf (yama shokupan). Same dough, your call.
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