Milk Bread Recipe for Bread Machine

Milk Bread recipe that you can make in the bread machine! Fluffy, feathery and pillowy bread that's buttery and just so slightly sweet - you will for sure fall in love with this bread.

Prep time: PT10M

Cook time: PT50M

Total time: PT300M

Rating

4.94 stars (46 reviews)

Keywords

milk bread

Ingredients

3/4 cup 2% low fat milk ((use preheat function or warm up milk))
1/4 cup water (room temp)
60 g unsalted butter (60g = 1/4 cup, melted)
1 egg
1 tsp sea salt
365 g unbleached bread flour (365g = 2 3/4 cups)
50 g sugar (50g = 3.5 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp milk powder
7 g instant yeast (7g = 1 packet = 2 tsp)
1 Tbsp unsalted butter

Cuisine

Japanese
Korean

Steps

Melt 60 g unsalted butter in the microwave until it's fully melted (50% power 20-25 sec in microwave).
Warm up your 3/4 cup 2% low fat milk (to bath water temperature) and use room temp 1/4 cup water and 1 egg - especially if you don't have a preheat function within your dough cycle.
Add all the wet ingredients (milk, water, melted butter, egg) + 1 tsp sea salt into the bread pan. You can add salt with your dry ingredients but I like to add the salt in this step to ensure it doesn't inhibit the yeast in anyway.
Mix DRY ingredients - mix 365 g unbleached bread flour and 50 g sugar first in a bowl and then add to pan on top of the wet ingrdients.
Make a little well (or a divot) in the middle of the dry ingredients and add 7 g instant yeast inside the well and also add 2 Tbsp milk powder (I usually add it in the corner of the pan).
Put the bread pan in the machine with all the ingredients in and start a full Basic Dough cycle. See above for details of my machine's dough cycle - it basically takes 1 hr 50 min total of preheating and proving twice. If you don't have a dough cycle, you can use a stand mixer by following steps in my regular milk bread recipe. After the dough cycle is complete and finished proving, your dough should look something like the bottom pic in the picture. Top pic is how the dough looks like at the start of the kneading process. So just be patient!
When the dough is done (1), punch it down (2) and then take the dough out of the pan onto a granite or wood cutting board (4) and divide into 2 equal size dough (5). Sprinkle some flour on the surface and knead each dough a few times then shaping it tightly into a ball (7). IF you have custom rise function THEN nestle each dough ball back in the bread pan next to each other (8) and let the dough balls rise in the machine for 30 min. IF there's NO custom rise function in your machine, you can put each dough ball into separate bowls, cover with plastic wrap or towel and let it rise in warm location or 100℉ oven for 20 min.
Once the dough has risen, transfer the dough one at a time on a smooth surface (granite or marble works well), sprinkle surface very lightly with flour and also coat the rolling pin lightlly with flour. Roll out one dough ball into a thick rectangle about 12 inches long and 4-5 inches wide. Roll the top of the dough (3 inches) down and then fold the bottom up about the same amount, resulting in a square-like dough shape. Roll it into a log, starting from one end of the square until you have a roll all rolled up.
Lightly use 1 Tbsp unsalted butter on the sides of the bread pan and nestle the 2 logs down in the bread machine pan like above.
Put pan back in the bread machine and set it to rise for 1 hr or until the top of the dough is up about 70% height of the pan. Again, if you don't have custom rise function, let dough rise in the pan at room temp or in 100℉ oven for 40 min.
We are ready to start baking! Bake for 50 min. Select the crust to your preference. I usually set crust to medium. Optionally, for some shine, brush the top with some milk or egg whites before baking. Note that bread baked in the bread machine won't have the same golden brown top like you get in the oven. BUT, believe me, the taste and texture is just as good as my original milk bread recipe!

Nutitrion

Serving Size: 14 g
Calories: 163 kcal
Carbohydrates: 24 g
Protein: 4 g
Fat: 5 g
Saturated Fat: 3 g
Trans Fat: 1 g
Cholesterol: 25 mg
Sodium: 182 mg
Sugar: 5 g
Unsaturated Fat: 2 g

Reviews

DK on 2026-05-01 (5 stars):
Great stuff
Alaina on 2026-03-09 (5 stars):
At altitude, should this recipe be adjusted? I am at ~5000ft above sea level, and added 1tbs milk and 1tsp water and reduced yeast 25%. My dough was very sticky and didnt rise very well. Im going to try the recipe as written and see if that works. I have the same machine. If you can clarify this, that would be great! Thanks
Lauren L on 2026-02-01 (5 stars):
I messed up but it worked out, did wet as directed but read wrong and MIXED the flour sugar dry milk AND YEAST together. forgot to turn machine on so I dumped it on wet and it sat for like 30 mins. I decided what the heck, turned on dough, let it do its thing. took out as directed, put in bowl as one big unit to rise for bout hour.. rolled. folded the whole unit into a rectangle and put back into maker and baked. ITS PERFECT!!!!!!
Melinda Burton on 2026-01-18 (5 stars):
I just made this milk bread from fresh milled hard white wheat (thank you for using ingredient weight). The only addition I made was to add 2 tablespoons of potato starch to help the milled grain with elasticity. So delicious! My new favorite fresh milled grain bread recipe.
Donna on 2025-10-21 (5 stars):
I have whole milk powder. Will this work??
Lourdes on 2025-10-13 (4 stars):
Ilove this recipe very good recipe thank you
cindy c on 2025-07-01 (5 stars):
Hi, just want to comfirm by using tangzhoung. only use 2/4 cup milk , water and egg as dry ingredients cause 1/4 cup of water used it at tangzhoung? can you show photo of the King Arthur’s Baker’s Special Dry Milk powder casue I see more than one kind and dont want to purchase the wrong one. What brand of bread flour do you use? Thank you and looking forward to try this.
Elo d'An on 2025-06-29 (5 stars):
First of all, the first batch is finished and we've almost eaten it all already, that's how good it is !! Second, I'm already planning to make the chocolate version, I'll update you on how it goes but I'm sure it will be good since it will be based on this recipe. Also, thank you for all the help !!