These days, it seems like we need fun and delicious foods more than ever. I've been distracting myself with this recipe for vegan sweetened condensed milk bread. If you love King's Hawaiian bread and/or Chinese or Japanese milk bread but have issues with dairy and/or eggs, this easy vegan milk bread recipe is for you. Well, if you love coconut, this recipe may delight you too. (We ate three rolls before I noticed how the afternoon light made them extra lovely.)
You don’t have to follow a dairy-free or vegan diet to appreciate the soft, delicately sweet and poofy nature of these rolls, which you may bake in different sizes and shapes, I imagine.The mini loaves are cuties.
My inspiration was simple — after I posted the sweetened condensed coconut milk recipe, someone on Instagram asked what can you do with it aside from putting it in Vietnamese coffee drinks. I pointed the person to a post for Asian recipes using sweetened condensed milk. But then I got thinking about baking bread with condensed milk.
Poking around the internet, I came across a sweetened condensed milk bread recipe from the Canadian arm of Eagle Brand, which owns Borden and Magnolia brands of sweetened condensed milk. Its recipe for “sweet milk bread” was egg-free. Condensed milk is magical for easy hacks like no-churn ice cream (see my book, Vietnamese Food Any Day, for the Viet coffee ice cream recipe on page 210).What would it do for an easy recipe like this one?
Condensed Milk in Dough
I've had a lot of fails with baking with condensed milk. It's got fat, sugar and viscosity. In cake batter, it can bake up as strange tunnels. But it's tasty stuff and I had a lot on hand.
Regarding the recipe from Eagle Brand, food manufacturer recipes often employ specific branded ingredients and vague, truncated instructions. This one wasn’t different, but I managed to make it work to create a dairy-free, vegan recipe that offers a delicate coconut quality to boot! It’s super easy, especially if you have a stand mixer, though you can make the dough by hand with extra elbow grease.
I didn’t know what to expect from the results, but the fluffy, soft, slight sweet rolls reminded me of a wholesome and easy version of King's Hawaiian bread or Japanese and Chinese-style milk bread. The dough is not as sweet as King's Hawaiian bread, which is great with me.
Conventional Japanese and Chinese-style milk breads depend on tangzhong -- a type of water roux introduced by cookbook author Yufen (Yvonne) Chen in her 2010 book, 65°C 湯種麵包 Tang Zhong Mian Bao = Bread Doctor. Bread dough made with condensed milk does not require making tangzhong. If you want to try a Japanese milk bread roll recipe, here's one from King Arthur that involves making tangzhong.
Or skip it. Before diving in with this recipe here are some pointers.
Condensed Milk and Flour Choices
To make this vegan, I used my homemade sweetened condensed coconut milk (picture below). The milk, along with virgin coconut oil, added a tropical coconut-ty quality to the dough. If you don't have time to make the condensed milk, purchase it at health food grocers. If you are not dairy-free or vegan, regular condensed milk should work fine too.
Regarding bread flour, it’s flour with a higher protein (gluten level). There are many options but I chose Gold Medal brand because it’s widely available in the States. It’s not fancy or artisanal but has worked well for Asian recipes.
I’m not a gluten-free bread baker, but you may try this vegan milk bread recipe with gluten-free bread flour mixes or blends to see what happens. Bob’s Red Mill and King Arthur offer bread mixes. Or get a primer from a book like Jeff Larsen’s award-winning Gluten Free Baking at Home, which is loaded with tips for yeast bread and rolls in the last chapter. Check your library, indie bookshops and vendors like Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
The Trickiest things with this Recipe
Shaping the little balls of dough requires a little technique that will payoff for you in many ways beyond this recipe. It’s called rounding and helps to create a uniform shape and spring action during baking. It can be hard to describe in words so I made a video to show you:
If you have problems seeing the video, refresh your browser. Or try another browser. I primarily use Chrome, but the videos are visible on Microsoft Edge too. Some folks have occasionally had issues with Safari, but I have not. Advance apologies for any inconvenience! Tech isn't perfect.
I apply this method to the banh mi rolls recipe in The Banh Mi Handbook, and when I go to use premade pizza dough that I’ve purchased from the supermarket. I’ve rounded naan bread dough too.
Other than that, the recipe is pretty straight forward. I thought I’d have to redo the recipe to tweak things, but it’s ready for you. Go ahead and try it out. Tinker (bake two smallish loaves, or brush the tops with a honey wash finish, for example!) and report your experiences so we may all benefit!
We had the rolls with a salad and on another day, with soup. You could serve up the rolls, which look like tiny bread loaves to kids for fun. I'm an adult with childlike tendencies and I like the mini loaves too!
Sweetened Condensed Coconut Milk Rolls
Use regular sweetened condensed milk and unsalted butter if a dairy-free result isn't important to you. See the main post for a video primer for shaping the rolls. Check out this sweetened condensed coconut milk recipe, if you want to go extra DIY.
Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1 cup lukewarm water
- 1 packet (2 ¼ teaspoons) fast-acting “instant” yeast, such as SAF Red Star brand
- ⅔ cup sweetened condensed coconut milk
- 1 ½ tablespoon coconut oil (virgin or refined), melted and at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 3 ¼ cups (16.25 oz) bread flour, plus more for dusting
- 1 tablespoon sweetened condensed coconut milk diluted with 2 to 3 teaspoons water (aim for a brushable consistency)
Instructions
To make the dough in a stand mixer, in the mixer bowl, dissolve the sugar in ⅓ cup of the water. Sprinkle on the yeast, stir to combine and let sit to soften, about 3 minutes.
Add the remaining ⅔ cup water and the sweetened condensed coconut milk, coconut oil, and salt. With the paddle attachment in place, run the machine on “stir” or low for about 15 seconds to combine. Pause the machine, and add the flour. Run the machine on low for about 1 minute, or until a shaggy dough forms. Turn off the machine and let sit, uncovered, for 5 minutes to further hydrate.
Meanwhile, grease a medium or large bowl with coconut or regular oil (whichever is handiest) and set aside.
Remove the paddle attachment and attach the dough hook. Run the mixer on medium for several minutes to combine the dough into a smooth, elastic dough. On my machine, the dough eventually sticks and climbs up the dough hook. Transfer the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead it to form a smooth roundish shape, about 1 minute. Press on it with a finger and the slightly sticky, somewhat soft dough (think a Post-it) will gently spring back.
To make the dough by hand, use a large bowl, combine the ingredients as instructed but stir the flour in with a sturdy spatula. Rest the shaggy result then knead the dough initially in the bowl, and when it comes together, transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface. Hand knead it for 8 to 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. You may have to add a bit of water (moisten your hands to add that clinging moisture).
Put the dough into the greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, then set in a warm, draft-free place to rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, then pull up each of the four corners and fold it to the center. When done, flip the dough over so the folds face the bowl bottom. Recover and let rise again in a warm place, about 45 minutes. Or refrigerate overnight, bringing it back to room temperature before shaping and baking.
Grease a 9-inch square baking pan (or similar size pan). If you want, like the bottom with parchment and let the paper extend about 1 inch beyond the pan rim for easier removal later.
Turn the dough onto your work surface. Cut it in half. Working with one of halves, shape it into a rope about 1 ½ to 2 inches wide. Cut the dough rope crosswise into 6 pieces. (If you want smaller rolls, make the rope smaller and longer to cut 8, 10 or 12 pieces.) Roughly roll each dough piece into a ball, then pull, tuck, and gather the edges of dough toward the center to form a small mound. Aim to create a taught small ball (see the video in the main post for guidance, if needed). Put the dough balls, seam side down, in a 9-inch square pan, arranging them as rows. Repeat with the other half of the dough.
Cover with plastic wrap (lightly oil it if you fear the dough touching the plastic), then let rise in a warm spot until doubled, about 1 hour. Roughly 15 minutes before the rolls have risen enough, preheat the oven to 350°F, with a rack in the middle position. Brush with half of the diluted condense coconut milk. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown on top.
Cool on a rack for 5 minutes before brushing the remaining diluted sweetened condensed milk on the top for a lightly sweet finish. Let cool for 20 to 30 minutes before removing the rolls by inverting the pan and quickly flipping the rolls back onto their bottoms (or, lift the parchment out of the pan). Finish cooling on the rack. Enjoy warm or at room temperature.
Notes
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