Shokupan (Japanese Milk Bread)

My daughter-in-law Rachel kindly shared this recipe with me from her cookbook Soup, Broth, Bread, published by Penguin Random House (Michael Joseph). This is a Japanese tear-and-share bread with the most wonderful pillowy, soft texture. It’s inspired by the yudane and tangzhong method, where a little bit of flour and water or milk (both, in this case) are cooked together to make a white sauce before mixing in the remaining ingredients. This method pre-gelatinises the starch in the fl