Make the World’s Fluffiest Bread – Shokupan | What’s Eating Dan?

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With its thin crust, cloudlike crumb, and enduring freshness, Japan’s shokupan is a baker’s delight. Dan shows you how to achieve a delicious and structurally sound loaf.

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ABOUT US: The mission of America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) is to empower and inspire confidence, community, and creativity in the kitchen. Founded in 1992, the company is the leading multimedia cooking resource serving millions of fans with TV shows (America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Country, and America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation), magazines (Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country), cookbooks, a podcast (Proof), FAST channels, short-form video series, and the ATK All-Access subscription for digital content. Based in a state-of-the-art 15,000-square-foot test kitchen in Boston’s Seaport District, ATK has earned the trust of home cooks and culinary experts alike thanks to its one-of-a-kind processes and best-in-class techniques. Fifty full-time (admittedly very meticulous) test cooks, editors, and product testers spend their days tweaking every variable to find the very best recipes, equipment, ingredients, and techniques. Learn more at

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0:00 – What is Yudane?
0:29 – Yudane in Shokupan Dough
0:52 – How to Make Yudane
1:30 – Experiment: Yudane vs. No Yudane
2:14 – Shokupan Dough
3:17 – How to Shape Shokupan
4:01 – Why You Should Let Bread Cool
4:38 – Slicing and Tasting
4:45 – Experiment: Shaped Loaf vs. Unshaped Loaf
5:19 – Brown Sugar Toast
6:10 – Credits

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41 Comments

  4. Why do you got such a hard on for exotic names? Almost every bread making culture knows a form of pre cooking dough. In German bakers simply call it "Kochstück" as in cooked piece (of dough). This is not some long lost knowledge only the ancient baking monks in far east asia discovered many moons ago.

  6. Two things here….. Why did you add sugar?? Yes I know, sugar traps water, making it a 'more moist' loaf. But, sugar in not in traditional bread. Sugar is for 'pastries'.
    Secondly, you mentioned not adding fat… Which was funny because you added milk. Which has fat in it. And more sugar. Which keeps pushing this 'bread', closer to a pastry!!!!!

  7. I am also curious to know how big of a difference there is in baking a bread just with water or enriching with milk? I know there are sugars, fats and whey protein in there but those are in relatively small proportions compared to the water, so I would be interested to see if there was much difference between using milk over just water

  8. So is there any difference in result between the yudane and the tangzhong? I realize the flour is just mixed with the boiling water vs actively cooked on the stove. Does the yudane hold less water than a tangzhong? Is this to stop starch globules from bursting? Just want to know if there's a difference

  11. This is a pretty good recipe. About 20% of the flour is used for the yudane, which is ideal. Tangzhong is typically only 5%. It is better to use temperature to make sure you hit the gelatinization temp. Microwaving should be fine too if you mix often. If you want a richer bread, try nama shokupan. And try honey butter toast made with shokupan.

  18. Nice to see a shokupan recipe with yudane, rather than the tangzhong recipes found almost everywhere (most of which promote the myth of the 5:1 ratio, which is very limiting recipe-wise in terms of the percentage of gelatinised flour that can be added when 20% is what you really want).

  19. Maybe someone can enlighten me. I’m a member of Cook’s Country and ATK but for the last couple of weeks anytime I click on a YouTube link to see a recipe I’m blocked. I can only obtain access by signing up for a paid membership. I decline the offer and log in using my ID and password but am still blocked. This is also the case with any other recipes on their sites. Am I missing something or is this the policy going forward?

  21. Shokupan is incredibly close to my heart. I have great childhood memories making brown sugar toast, french toast, and fluffy sandwiches with shokupan. When ATK dropped their recipe, I had just spent months perfecting my own recipe. Regardless, I’m genuinely so happy to have more people know about this wonderful bread. It’s a staple part of many Japanese breakfasts.

  22. Oy, so may ninnies complaining about the paywall. Get a library card, and look at the May/June 2022 issue of Cooks Illustrated, recipe: “A Feather Bed of a Loaf.” It took me less than a minute to get it, FOR FREE.

  28. Both techniques have been used in German bread making for over a thousand years, too; they are called "Brühstück" (brew piece) or "Kochstück" (boil piece) and are exactly the same as the two Japanese techniques displayed here to incorparate extra moisture into the finished product. Different methods of shaping the bread are also common to achieve different textures in the bread.

  29. Hooray for the weight measurements (0:54), not just a more precise way to measure, but easier to achieve, simply by adding an $11 device to the kitchen—and just as easily stymied by American guess-as-guess-can volumetric recipes. Dan Souza and Lan Lam have the most consistently practical and useful videos of all the ATK offerings.

  34. i made this. sadly, it's the worst bread ever. you cant schmear anything on it. it will break apart instantly. it doesnt make good sammich bread as it flops over when you hold it and all your cold cuts and cheeses and condiments fall out. not sure what it's really good for.

  35. I've been making shokupan-style dinner rolls the past few weeks. One thing you can (should) do is chill the yudane/tangzhong overnight. It allows it even more gelatinizing benefit with starch retrogradation. Since you're doing this you can also make a poolish pre-ferment to add even more complex flavor to the loaf, too.

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