8 Ways to Make Milk Bread

There's no bread quite like milk bread, and no better time to bake it than right now. A loaf of milk bread is soft and tears apart in feathery chunks, but has a richness that makes it taste like the less-intense sister of brioche. It's a little decadent but not at all heavy, making it the perfect bread for the shoulder season of spring.

Theclassic recipeis the place to start. Make it and get acquainted with tangzhong, a mixture of flour and milk that's cooked before being incorporated into the rest of the dough. Tangzhong, popularized by Taiwanese cookbook author Yvonne Chen, allows a bread to retain more moisture — which is how milk bread gets (and stays) so soft and moist.

Once you know how make basic milk bread, you can shape and fill it in endless ways. My colleague Tatiana developed a recipe for a classicBolo Bao, a milk bread bun that's topped with a cookie crust and filled with pastry cream. (I've made it. It's supremely delicious.) Another bun (this one developed by my friend Hetty McKinnon) is stuffed witha sweet black sesame and coconut filling.

To go beyond the bun, check out ourFilled Wool Roll, a bundt-like loaf of milk bread that resembles a bundle of yarn and is stuffed with raspberry cream cheese; see how to make itstep-by-step on YouTube. (We also haveminiature wool rollsstuffed with frangipane and fruit.) Or flavor your milk bread withchocolateormatcha. Or go with my personal favorite, theScallion Hot Dog Bun. With pieces of hot dog baked right into the bun, it's the way to make milk bread a full meal. Or a least a filling snack.