I considered calling this story “The Conversion of a Former Bread Snob.” That’s because I’ve spent the past two years focusing my recreational baking efforts on free-form sourdough boules with crunchy exteriors and holey interiors studded with nubbly whole grains and seeds. If it didn’t require a frisky starter and at least 8 hours of engagement to make (and a powerful jaw to chew), I wasn’t interested. But I was misguided, and shokupan—Japan’s soft, white, feather bed of a loaf—was the source of my enlightenment.
The interior is plush, though not without resilience, a duality that’s described in Japanese as “mochimochi.”
Shokupan is baked in a long, narrow, lidded Pullman pan to create a uniform rectangular shape, all visually crisp edges and smooth, broad planes. The golden crust is thin and pliable, and the interior is plush, though not without resilience, a duality that’s described in Japanese as “mochimochi.” Shokupan’s flavor is mild, so squares of it can be filled with any kind of savory sandwich fixings or decoratively stuffed
