Bread Making
It took me a year to produce a respectable loaf of Japanese Milk Bread, (this a pure delicate crust loaf of white sandwich bread). If you have children who want you to cut the crust off of their sandwich bread, this is the most likely loaf that you can make that has any chance whatsoever of the crust being eaten. If they won’t eat this, then they will never eat the crust. It is my favorite way to have the delicious strawberry and whipped cream sandwich that I would purchase at the Yokosuka station of the Keikyu train line on my way home during the hot Japan summer. Purchased an foldable insulated bag to hold the sandwich and keep it cold on the ride home.
When we were living in California as a young enlisted family in the late 1980s the cost of living was extremely expensive. (It still is.) We had to cut corners where we could. With little ones who loved pb and j sandwiches, one place to cut cost was bread. Based on cost of ingredients, homemade sandwich bread was a huge savings; for the cost of one store- bought loaf, I could make three homemade loves. When you easily go through two loaves a week that is a huge savings. One problem, no one liked the tough thick crust. I tried many ways to create a softer crust. So, I cut the crust off. Every loaf I worked to find a more suitable recipe.
Specialty loaves, like the one I make for French Toast Casserole were hits and quickly consumed. But an acceptable sandwich bread was never obtained. Not until I had the bakery made Japanese Milk Bread years later in Japan. It is the best sandwich bread ever. It beat the shipped over bread at the base commissary by a long shot. I was deeply saddened as the our time in Japan was coming to a close and I knew the likelihood of having some favorite foods we had become accustomed to would end. Time to learn some techniques to make those foods at home. I began to scour the internet, watch NHK cooking shows, talk with my Japanese friends and look for cookbooks with authentic methods and ingredient lists that would help me take my favorite dishes home with me.
From previous stateside assignments neighbors taught me how to make dishes from the regions we had lived home. I had learned how to make Kimchi from a Korean neighbor in California, and though I never quite mastered Darren’s bowtie wontons, I did learn to make them taste like his and Terri taught me how to make egg rolls. My repertoire of meals and dishes increased.
Now I am working on making sourdough, not the share around ziplock bag that my mother would send me home with when it was a popular “gift” that kept giving. Every day bread and bread products from the discard making it frugal and hearty eating. So far my results have been better than the early sandwich bread results in 1989. Thank goodness! But my go to sandwich bread is still Japanese Milk Bread.