One-time Proofing Soft Bread (Killer Toast)

It's the bread recipe that's gone viral in the social media lately - the Killer Toast and it claims to produce very soft and irresistible textured bread. Victoria Bakes highly recommended this super uber soft bread and I totally trust Victoria as she has shared quite a number of fantastic bread recipes before. Hop over to her blog for more great recipes.

If you are familiar with breadmaking, you would know the few basic steps - mixing, first rise (or bulk fermentation), shaping, proofing and baking which takes up a long time (at least in my case on cold days).  However this Killer Toast recipe skips one step in the fermentation process. One-time proofing?  Wow, that's music to my ears! You just need to knead, shape, proof and bake!   It means cutting down the number of hours in waiting for the dough to rise twice. 

Yesterday I decided to try out the famous recipe. It was a very cold day whereby the temperature dipped below 18°C indoors. I didn't record the time it took from start to finish, however, by 3pm I could sit down and have a slice of freshly baked bread with my cuppa.  

Liquid mixture:  90g eggs + 70g cream + 200g milk = 360g in total

Knead to get a smooth, silky and elastic dough that doesn't stick to the mixing bowl before incorporating the butter into the dough

To achieve the window-pane test (crucial) - the dough must be stretchy and smooth and translucent 

A beautiful smooth, soft and silky dough ...

Shaping the dough

... before proofing

after proofing ...

I doubled the original recipe to make 2 loaves ~

Dry mixture:

520g bread flour

60g caster sugar

4g salt

9g instant dried yeast (increased the amount of yeast)

Liquid mixture: Total of 360g

90g eggs

70g thickened cream

200g fresh milk

60g butter, cut into cubes

• Grease 2 loaf pans (8x4x3 in / 20.5x10.5x7.5 cm). 
• In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. 
• Pour in the liquid mixture and knead until the dough is elastic and smooth and leaves the sides of the mixing bowl.  
• Incorporate the butter into the dough and continue to knead until it passed the window pane test (whereby the dough can be stretched into a paper-thin film without tearing and is translucent).
• Divide the dough into 6 equal portions (165g each).  Flatten each portion of the dough and roll it up like swiss rolls.  Place 3 rolls in each greased loaf pan .  Cover with cling wrap and let it rise until it reaches 90% of the height of the pan.
• Bake in a preheated oven of 170°C on the second lowest rack in the oven for about 45 - 50 minutes (tent the top loosely with foil once the bread is sufficiently brown).