Every weeaboo has to try making meronpan at one point or another. In fact I've tried it three times now. The first time we had an awful recipe, the second time I've tried making the recipe better (which didn't help) and this time it looks like we're on the right track.

We've used Wild Yeast's recipe - if you want to try it yourself we can definitely recommend it.

No "work in progress" pictures as usual because we were too lazy. It was all rushed anyway, we also forgot putting in the 50 g BUTTER into the bread dough.

Remember to make the cuts deeper.

Sadly no picture of the bread inside. It was surprisingly fluffy inside and crispy outside.

Also make more cookie dough next time.

As you can see more practice would be appropriate.

Today's loot (no extra post because it's so small):

Idea for another wall display: otaku and geek drinks! (Although we have NO space on the walls left in this room..)

And I lol'd at this (this is the amount of caffeine in Mountain Dew). Fluid ounces what the heck..

But now for the recipe. As said, this is slightly modified:

You'll need:

• 220 ml whipped cream
• 30 g skimmed milk powder
• 450 ml milk
• 10 g salt
• 1 block yeast
• 30 g brown suger
• ~800 g flour (type 405)

Instructions:

Mix milk with sugar and a little bit of flour, heat to 30 *C, put yeast in it, mix again bringin in quite some air. Let yeast start working. Heat the rest of the milk / cream to 30 *C Add everything into a mixing bown and knead (via machine) for at least 15 minutes. Make sure to add plenty liquid (milk) to get the right consistency of the dough, the humid consistency here is the key to the super-fluffy result (together with the extraordinary long kneading...). Divide into 3 equal parts and knead each part for 3 minutes again. Put the round parts into a fatted loaf-pan next to each other and let swell until it reaches a level just over the top of the loaf-pan (at least double volume). A good tip for this is to use your oven just preheated to 35-40*C and the lamp (BUT NO HEATING) still on. Bake for ~40-50 minutes applying some milk to the top 3-4 times (warning: do not apply at the beginning, only after a more or less hard crust started to form).

Thats it, receive tastey modded Hokkaido Milkbread . The taste is somehow unique. Way more fluffy than normal milk-dough, also somehow more moist, humid (and tastey). The sweetness sure comes through but that doesn't mean the bread wouldn't go well with non-sweet toppings, cheese, etc. Still - sweet toppings such as self-made marmalde is still best ever on this bread .

Thats a special kind of yeast thats harvested from natural yeasts in honey carried in by bees from various sources (yeasts exist all over the world, thats how beer and bread used to work in medieval ages). Its called "Backferment" (no translation found, sorry) and was developed by Hugo Erbe around the beginning of the century.

The making is somehow troublesome and similar to sourdough, you first need a quite fluid base which consists of:

- 150g flour type 405

- 150g freshly ground wholemeal flour

- 300-400g water

- 10g Backferment

and that needs to stand at ~28*C for a day. You should see quite some bubbles rising after that. After that you need yet another base, the breads sponge which is a bit less fluid (300g of any flour, 20-30g of the base and 5g Backferment) and yet again needs to stand a half day to swell and expand. Again bubbles should be clearly visible. The rest is easy, add another 700-800g of any flour, salt, oil and whatnot to your liking knead, let rest for 2 hours (or better: until it starts to collapse slightly again), bake until finished, thats it.

The result was astonishing, a slight, mild taste like sourdough, but not as harsh as real sourdough. It was super fluffy, but IMO with 1/3 freshly ground wholemeal flour it tasted a bit too solid, so 100% type 405 is my recommendation . In any case, Backferment is worth the trouble and produces a bread thats quite different from regular yeast white bread and sourdough bread. Its uniqueness is expressed in a mild, pleasant taste that reminds of sourdough.

For anyone whos eager to try some new breadmaking techniques and play around, Backferment is sure one of the ways to go . Be also sure to check back as we try out specific recipes for great breads. As soon as the look of the is up to a nice standard we'll also post pictures . Bon appetit!