Shokupan, bitches!

That trip to Japan with Masumi ruined me on so many foods. One of them is shokupan. So I've been on a QUEST to make my own, starting with buying my own Ideal Loaf Pan from Asai Shoten (I can't believe how much smaller it is in real life than I imagined. At the rate I eat shokupan, I'm going to need to make bread every other damn day. But at least it fits in my Instant Pot for proofing!). Based on the Just One Cookbook recipe, which is geared for successful shokupan making in SF kitchen conditions, but had too many pictures and unsolicited advice.

Ingredients (for the 1 kin Ideal Loaf pan from Asai Shoten):

167g water at 104 deg (use electric kettle)

28g sugar

2.25g salt

7g honey

4.7g RapidRise yeast or similar

235g bread flour (use King Arthur)

14g Canadian skim milk powder

17g unsalted butter (that's a teeny bit over 1 tbsp) + 10g (that's a teeny bit under 1 tbsp) more for greasing the bread pan

a few drops of oil

Special Tools:

- Ideal Loaf Pan (1 kin) from Asai Shoten

- Instant Pot with Yogurt setting

- Electric Kettle with 104 deg setting on it

- Crack scale

- Rolling pin

- Kitchenaid Classic mixer (instructions and mixing times specific to this mixer)

- Pastry brush (optional, if you don't wanna get your fingers all greasy)

- 1 medium bowl

- Whatever weighing receptacle you want to use (I used a tiny pyrex beaker)

- Rubber spatula

- Instant read thermometer

God that's so much shit that I've accumulated in my kitchen over the years.

1. In the medium bowl, weight out and measure the sugar and salt. Weigh the honey in whatever measuring receptacle can hold that and the water.

2. Heat up the water in the kettle to 104 degrees. Pat yourself on the back for having bought a kettle that does this. Weigh out the warm water into the vessel with the honey and swirl to mix it into honey water.

3. Sprinkle your yeast on top of the warm water. Wait around a few minutes to make sure it gets that yeasty smell to know it's active. Pour it all into the medium bowl with the sugar and salt, and stir around. Make sure you scrape in all the yeasty bits from the measuring container. Put the bowl with the liquid in the microwave and let it hang out there for 10 minutes.

4. Chop up the unsalted butter into little butter bits. Weigh out the flour and milk powder into the Kitchenaid mixing bowl. Stir around to combine it, then dig a well in the center.

5. Make sure that yeasty water is foamy and alive. If it isn't, wait 5 more min. If it's not foamy by then, it's dead. Chuck it and try with better yeast. If it's good to go, scrape it all into the center well of the flour in the Kitchenaid bowl. Mix it up by hand with the spatula until it's mixed together.

6. Knead on speed 2 for 2 minutes using the dough hook

7. Knead on speed 4 for 4 minutes

8. Add the butter bits and knead on speed 2 for 2 minutes (or until the butter is absorbed)

9. Knead on speed 4 for 4 minutes

10. Knead on speed 6 for 4.5 minutes. Be careful to hold onto your stand mixer to not let it shake itself off the table.

11. Stop and do a windowpane check. The dough should all come of in one piece from the bottom of the bowl easily. Rip off a golf ball sized amount of dough and pull until light goes through without tearing the dough. If it's good to go, awesome. If not knead for 1 more minute or so and try again. Don't over-knead it (dough will be floppy and flaccid instead of pulling up in one piece from the bottom of the bowl)

12. Stick an instant read thermometer into the bulk of the dough and make sure it is between 79 and 82 degrees. It should be if you follow this recipe exactly.

13. Scrape all the dough onto a lightly floured surface. The "smooth" side is now down on the table. Keep track of it.

14. Pick up the dough, flip it over in your hand, and then smack it down onto the counter, smooth side down. Fold the dough in half, by bringing the top edge down to meet the bottom

15. Smack the dough on the counter smooth side down (it should be all of it). Fold in half, left to right.

16. Repeat steps 14 and 15 alternatingly for a total of 5 smack-fold combos (smack, fold vertical, smack, fold horizontal, smack, fold vertical)

17. Lube up your Instant Pot pot liner with a bit of oil. Make it real light, you don't want pools of grease.

18. Gather up all the edges of the dough tightly underneath to form a nice taut dough ball. Pinch all the seams at the bottom to hide them. Top side should look nice and smooth. Lay the pinch side down in the greasy Instant Pot liner. Cover the top in saran wrap

19. Leave it in the Instant Pot on the Yogurt setting (valve in release position) for 40 minutes.

20. Lightly flour the top of the risen dough ball (tripled in size). Ream your floured finger into the center and check to make sure the hole stays there. Good to go if it does.

21. Flip out the dough onto a lightly floured surface (smooth side down). Press out all the air with your fingertips. Gather up the edges toward the center and make another dough ball with the smooth side down. Wrap the saran wrap onto the kitchen scale.

22. Cut the dough in half. Weigh both halves and make sure they're equal enough

23. Make each half into a taut ball by gathering the edges down and tucking/pinching underneath the smooth side. Do that thing where you pull the dough ball gently towards you to get a nice tall ball with a taut smooth side out. Get some paper towels damp, leave the balls on the counter, and cover 'em up for 15 min with the wet paper towels.

24. Lube up the shokupan pan with butter. Include the lid if you're making a closed loaf.

25. Do this to each dough ball at a time: lightly sprinkle top with flour, press rolling pin in the center, then roll up and away, then down and towards you. Flip over, turn 90 degrees, pull out the corners to make a rectangle, and roll again. Roll out corners. Now you have a long vertical rectangle.

26. Fold into 3rds (left and right), make sure it's even. Press the free edges when you fold them in. Take the corners of the edge farthest away from you and fold them in to make an arrow. Roll towards you and maintain a little tension to make a little dough snail. Pinch the free edge closed. Set the first one under the paper towel while you make the second.

27. Lay the two snails in the buttered shokupan pan with the swirls each pointing towards the center (snails with 2 butts facing each other)

28. Cover the top of the pan with saran wrap. Put it back in the Instant Pot set to Yogurt for 55 minutes.

29. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425 degrees, with the rack set to the second-to-last on the bottom.

30. Check the height of the dough balls. It should be 80% of the mold. Slap the lid on.

31. Lower oven temp to 415. Bake for 27 minutes.

32. When it comes out of the oven, immediately drop the closed baking pan twice on the stove top to release water vapor. Take the lid off and shake the loaf onto a wire rack to let cool completely.