Notes about Recipes in this book

• Mother of all milk bread

  • hirsheys on December 27, 2021

    I made these as buns - came out tasty, light, and sweet. My niece (who loves milk bread) prefers this recipe to the King Arthur version, though I thought both were tasty. (I might slightly prefer the one from Pastry Love). Followed recipe as written except used the paddle on kitchen aid until the dough came together, then switched to hook. ETA: they are MUCH prettier with the egg wash. Don't omit. Note to self: don't go above #2 on KitchenAid even though she says to.

  • Yildiz100 on January 18, 2022

    Nice soft and sweet bread. Really well written instructions. (All the instructions and diagrams in this book seem really clear and informative. ) For my taste, I would like a tiny bit more salt. Will try adding just 1/8th of a tsp more next time.

  • chawkins on March 14, 2022

    This is the dough used to make the cocktail buns. The dough was easy to work with and the buns turned out soft, fluffy and tasty.

  • stef on May 31, 2022

    Loved the recipe. Loved the bread. Anxious to make variations

  • fiojja on January 14, 2023

    I've made this many times now, and this recipe is an absolute star. For making the tangzhong I've found that on my glass top stove I need to go to medium heat otherwise it takes a very long time to get to that mashed potato-like consistency. A KitchenAid does wonders, although the dough is so heavy that I've found trying to do more than one batch at a time requires supervision. The book says to go to a higher setting on the KitchenAid, but KitchenAid doesn't recommend going over 2 for bread doughs, especially heavy ones like this. The first time I used my KitchenAid I did as the book instructed, but every other time I've done 2 and I haven't noticed a difference in rise or consistency of the baked bread.

  • jenmmcd on February 19, 2023

    I love this recipe and have made it many times. Whole wheat version is great also. Now all I want to do is think of ways to use this dough! That said, I do think it’s a bit too sweet, so I reduce the sugar to 25 or 30 grams. I’ve made this in my stand mixer but have also added all the ingredients (plus tangzhong) to the bread maker and mixed it on the dough setting. That works wonderfully also.

  • stef on April 22, 2023

    Made over and over again. I successfully increased recipe 1 1 /2 times. This recipe is worth price of book.

  • nutrica6 on August 20, 2023

    The best milk bread recipe I have ever tried. So soft and sweet. I followed the recipe exactly. Perfect bread for a ham and cheese sandwich with extra pickles! The bread literally melts in your mouth. It feels like eating a dessert. I topped it with Furikake Japanese rice seasoning for extra umami.

  • sephina on January 07, 2024

    This is a staple recipe in our household, though I've come to make a couple of variations over time. Normally, I reduce the sugar to 30g. Once in a while, I add 15g of milk powder for a milkier taste. I maintain the amount of the other ingredients whether or not I make these changes. The buns always turn out fluffy and tasty regardless.

  • ChefLeen on February 05, 2025

    Vermont creamery salted butter works great and doesn’t over salt the bread

  • Karinett on August 25, 2025

    Great staple milkbread recipe.

  • katrina_jhypqm on March 17, 2026

    great staple bread recipe. takes time

• Chocolate milk bread

  • yaleksly on October 14, 2024

    Made this with the inclusion of chocolate chips and a slight sprinkle of Demerara sugar on top of the egg wash. Will skip the sugar next time, as it melts from the moisture that the bread has. Chocolate chips WERE very necessary to boost the flavor; otherwise, the bread itself seemed like a very standard loaf of milk bread, with the slightest whisper of chocolate.

• To make a classic three-segment loaf [milk bread]

  • amy_ky231a on March 12, 2026

    I need more practice, but bread was delicious and made great toast.

  • zachary_uo86ny on May 18, 2026

    Followed every step, the product turned out exactly as was promised by the recipe.

• Matcha and black sesame marbled milk bread

  • Astrid5555 on June 28, 2022

    This is a fun project! The milk bread dough is a charm to work with and the subtle matcha/black sesame flavor is just delicious!

  • sephina on May 21, 2024

    This bread is great for when you want to impress! I braided instead of rolling the dough to get an even more pronounced marble effect, which made it look really pretty. I do wish the sesame and matcha flavour were more pronounced, so will likely double up next round.

• To make gua bao (Steamed slider buns)

  • TinyCitiKitchen on August 16, 2023

    My first stab at bao, and they were perfect. And they froze beautifully: after steaming, I froze on a sheet, then layered with waxed paper in a zip lock. When I was ready to serve, I simply steamed them again. Worked like a charm, meaning this can be an "anytime" bread. I can't wait to try the sweet potato version for my Thanksgiving leftovers :)

• Brown sugar shao bing

  • sephina on January 07, 2024

    The filling oozed out, so it may have been too much for the dough to wrap around. Because of that, some of the sugar burned but after removing the burnt bits, my family enjoyed these.

• Xi'an-style braised lamb ro jia mao

  • emilycaj on December 22, 2025

    I made only the filling, not the bread. I used boneless pork butt instead of lamb. So, so easy and delicious. It took an hour and a half to cook instead of the hour suggested.

• The almighty pineapple bun (Bo lo bao)

  • chawkins on July 10, 2022

    Good pineapple buns, but not my favorite, the topping is too soft for my liking, it crisped up a little if you heat it up in the oven. I did not do the cross-hatch scoring, the pineapple buns of my childhood were all naturally cracked, never scored. I also added a custard filling to the buns, so I got 15 buns instead of 12.

  • jaxcap on August 28, 2023

    I think these turned out pretty well, not too sweet which I liked.

• Cocktail buns (Gai mei bao)

  • chawkins on March 14, 2022

    Very good. Had not have these for over 30 years, so don’t remember if the taste is authentic, but do remember that the topping should not be cookie-like, should be more like the cross on hot cross buns.

• Red bean swirl buns

  • Astrid5555 on January 19, 2022

    So delicious, first time baking with red bean paste. I love how versatile the milk bread dough from this book is. The tutorial including some drawings perfectly explains the process of how to shape these buns.

  • chawkins on May 01, 2025

    Quite good. I skipped the sugar glaze at the end and the buns were sweet enough for me with the red bean paste filling. I probably over-reduced the red bean paste, I only have enough paste for a scant tablespoon for each bun and quite a bit fell off when shaping, but surprisingly, there were still quite a bit of filling in each bun when bitten into.

  • Ducksinarose on May 24, 2026

    This was a bit labor intensive to roll out each bun, fill it, score it, twist it and then roll it up. My family thought the outcome was beautiful and delicious.

• Red bean paste

  • chawkins on May 01, 2025

    I might have over-cooked the paste as I got less than what the recipe should have produced and the paste was a tad dry and did not adhere to the dough too well. Next time will cook for the amount of time specified not until no more evaporation and may also add more oil.

• After-school PB&J buns

  • BachranBears on April 11, 2024

    These wound up delicious but were problematic to make. The amount of pb&j she calls for oozes everywhere and makes it impossible to seal the dough. Wound up putting half the amount in some and it worked better. All that said, we still loved them. Might try freezing little balls of the filling to wrap for the next time

• Chocolate Nutella loaf

  • Astrid5555 on October 22, 2021

    This is a delicious bake which I have had to bake already three times as per popular family demand. Older son even gave one away as a birthday present for a friend, need I say more?

• Sweet potato and brown sugar mantou

  • ShayLRoss on January 11, 2026

    Really enjoyed the process of making these and liked the subtle sweetness. Will need to think how to improve the dough rise next time as it took much longer than anticipated.

• Rhubarb and cream cheese buns

  • Astrid5555 on April 12, 2022

    Everything from this book using „The Mother of all Milk Bread“ dough turns out delicious, and these buns are no exception. Light and fluffy with the right tartness from the rhubarb these buns were a big hit.

• Milk bread doughnuts with salted egg yolk cream

  • Astrid5555 on May 12, 2022

    The milk bread dough from this book is so versatile, I just love it. The doughnuts were incredibly fluffy and got rave reviews. I had some leftover vanilla pastry cream, so I used that one instead of the salted egg yolk cream from the book.

• Very chill jam buns

  • Astrid5555 on January 19, 2022

    Devoured by my teenage sons and their class mates. Not too sweet and quite quick to make.

  • organicgirl on February 28, 2022

    Next time would reduce the amount of jam - could use 1/2 or 3/4 cup

  • JuneHawk on January 06, 2024

    Delicious. Next time I would use less jam and chill the rolled dough for a bit before slicing it.

  • Saltbun on April 15, 2026

    Pretty tasty! It absolutely does taste just like milk bread and jam, aka breakfast (I mention this because I was momentarily caught by surprise when I took a bite, then thought about it and realized it made sense). Echoing other comments about halving the jam. A ton spilled out when I rolled it. Give yourself extra time too. It took a lot longer than I expected to make get the mashed potato consistency for the tangzhong, but it was my first time so I may have been doing it wrong

• BBQ pork buns (Char siu bao)

  • chawkins on December 24, 2021

    I only made the filling with char siu I already made from another recipe, I did not made the dough because I wanted baked buns, not steamed ones. I used Joshua Weissman’s best burger buns for the dough which I got 8 filled buns. Half of this filling was enough to stuff 4 of those buns. The filling was quite salty on it own, but was okay in the buns.

  • emilycaj on December 22, 2025

    This was a time consuming project that my whole family helped with during Christmas. None of us had ever made steamed buns before, and we definitely made some mistakes--they seem like something that just requires some practice. Nonetheless, they were delicious and we all felt very impressed with ourselves that we were able to make them at home! You get a lot more filling than you need for the buns.

• Char siu pork

  • qchu204 on January 24, 2024

    Very easy recipe which I made with boneless pork butt and turned out great! Tried char siu recipes from the Woks of Life and Recipetineats but liked the flavors of this recipe better.

  • gemini_n56abk on January 02, 2026

    My go-to for char siu!

• Mango mousse cake

  • Astrid5555 on October 14, 2021

    My mangoes apparently were not sweet enough for sweetening the mousse only with fruit. Unfortunately I realized it only after I had assembled the cake and tasted the leftover mousse, so do try the mousse even if your mangoes are very sweet. I used my melon baller to cut out mango balls for the decoration and added some chocolate crisppearls for crunch. Also, 1/4 cup of toasted coconut is way too much for decorating the top of the cake only as instructed. Apart from that a stunning looking dinner party-worthy dessert.

  • calguire on April 26, 2026

    After reading the previous comment, I sweetened the mousse as it was suggested in the recipe. I found the taste to be perfect, definitely not too sweet. I toasted 1/2 cup of coconut to put on top of the cake and I thought it was a good quantity.

• Macau-style egg tarts (Po tat)

  • krista_jo on November 05, 2021

    I found these needed a bit longer cooking time than advertised. It is important that the bottom crust gets nice and brown. My oven goes up to 550 so next time I am going to try the higher temperature.

• Malay cake (Ma lai gao)

  • Astrid5555 on November 22, 2021

    Had an open can of evaporated milk from another recipe so this recipe popped up in my EYB search and peaked my interest because this cake is steamed rather than baked. Unfortunately my bamboo steamers are way to small for an 8 inch cake pan, so I only made 3/4 of the recipe in a 6 inch pan (way too much batter) and my alternative steamer set-up was not ideal. It worked but due to the large amount of batter the cake rose too much and touched the steamer basket lid. It did work however, but was not nice to look at. Since I had some batter left I made an experiment baking off the remainder in muffins tins (did of course not work). Steamed cake tasted great though!

  • GrammieP on July 23, 2023

    I have made this cake twice. It is a great, moist, sort of spongy snacking cake. First I tried baking it in my steam oven. That took forever. Went out and got a new bamboo steamer (of course I had recently given my son the one I've had since college). It is a 10 inch size so an 8 inch pan fit perfectly. In the bamboo steamer it was done in the time stated in the recipe. I really love this cake.My family likes it too. It keeps well. Unique but so good.

  • Ishie1013 on March 17, 2025

    Had a similar experience to Astrid, though with a larger bamboo steamer, but it did rise sufficiently to get stuck to the top; I'm still learning how to steam cook things. The taste was fantastic though!

• Black sesame soufflé cheesecake

  • Astrid5555 on December 03, 2021

    This is THE cake for a black sesame fan, which I am, so I almost ate the all of the cake by myself, so so good!

• Matcha sponge cake

  • MakeMyHay on January 03, 2022

    Beautiful color, light and softly spongy texture, not too sweet, the matcha adds a vegetal note that’s not too strong. I halved the recipe and dusted the single layer with powdered sugar for an easy and striking dessert.

• Honey pistachio mooncakes

  • krista_jo on January 17, 2022

    These are delicious. Equally salty and sweet. Simpler than making, say, a pie. The mould I ordered from Amazon was smaller than the one the author used so my mooncakes were taller and spilled out of the mould -- Suggest making a test mooncake with 1/12 of the dough and filling before filling all the balls to see whether you need to make adjustments.

  • ShayLRoss on January 01, 2026

    Made these twice and loved them. This recipe makes the process easy to follow and provides recommendations for mold sizes. The one I have is a bit too small, but it's still workable. I'm interested in getting more mold sizes and try other variations.

• Pork floss and seaweed pull-apart rolls

  • MakeMyHay on January 18, 2022

    Substituted soy-based “vegetarian imitation pork fiber” (purchased on Amazon) for the pork floss.

  • BachranBears on April 11, 2024

    So savory and delicious. Easy to make. Let the dough rise in the fridge overnight before assembling and I think I’ll be doing that in the future for other versions as well. Her milk bread recipe is quickly becoming a favorite.

• Miso corn buns

  • Yildiz100 on June 01, 2022

    The miso butter was too rich for me, but the bread was delicious as ever. I think I will try these again with the corn cheese variety she mentioned.

  • amy_ky231a on March 12, 2026

    I wish I could eat these everyday!

• Hot dog flower buns

  • chawkins on June 09, 2022

    This used the mother of all milk bread dough which was very nice as noted before. I made two shapes, the flower bun and a wool bread kind-of bun. Her method of forming the flower by cutting all the way thru and rearranging the cut pieces to form a flower shape produced a very lovely looking bun, however, once baked, the bread did not seem to be able to hold the hot dog pieces , so when you picked it up, some of the hot dog piece dropped out. I did not have this problem when I used other recipes where the rolled up hot dog dough bundle was only partially cut and the flower was formed by twisting the pieces to shape.

  • jaxcap on August 28, 2023

    I used the shaping instructions on The Woks of Life (https://thewoksoflife.com/flower-hot-dog-buns/), I think it looks nicer if you make 7 cuts instead of 5, and cut partially + twist vs. cutting all the way through to form the flower. I also made spiral ones on my own, you just roll a thin snake and then wrap it around the hot dog.

  • emilycaj on December 22, 2025

    This was a time consuming project but very easy and very delicious. I didn't have any problems with the flowers sticking together despite cutting them all the way through as the book instructed, but I did really squish them together hard when I was shaping the flowers. Once they were baked, I froze many of these and then put them frozen in my kid's school lunch-- they were thawed by lunchtime and she loved them. Definitely a recipe to repeat!

• Rose siu mai

  • Frenchfoodie on June 14, 2022

    These were delicious, and the looks were matched with their practicality - each ‘rose’ equates to three regular dumplings so it is easier to get a decent amount steamed and served at once. I hand rolled the dough and it was really easy to handle and - - while a bit thick - still delicious.

• Strawberry jasmin milk tea

  • jenburkholder on January 13, 2023

    Really good, refreshing beverage. I used frozen strawberries and added a tiny bit of agave syrup for sweetness and just a pinch of beet powder for color. Will make again to use up the jasmine tea on my counter.

• Everything bagel bao

  • hirsheys on January 22, 2025

    Very good, though I much prefer them cold out of the fridge rather than warm. So enjoy working with the milk bread dough and rolling these out/forming these bao was very enjoyable and easy. I used premade TJ's everything seasoning rather than make fresh - worked great.

• Kinako sewing tin butter cookies

  • hirsheys on February 15, 2025

    Delicious toasty unique flavor. The cookies themselves are easy enough to put together and they were similar enough to the ones I had at Momotaro to make me really happy. (I used Great grandma Helen’s cookie press to make them too, so they felt extra special.)

• Deep-dish pepperoni bread

  • chawkins on July 17, 2024

    Apparently my husband likes this a lot, he has been eating a quarter loaf every morning. However, it was somewhat of a disaster for me to make. I made of mistake of using homemade sauce that I did not reduce enough so a lot of tomato juice oozed out when rooled and the layers did not adhere to one another when cut. I also did not quite understand what she meant by sprinkle the cheese around the edge of the pan, I greased the vertical side of the pan and tried to sprinkle cheese onto the vertical part of the pan but most of the cheese fell to the bottom of the pan. I also should have monitored the color of the top and covered with foil for the last few minutes of baking.

• Goong Goong’s almond cookies

  • AndieEats on February 20, 2026

    I really wanted to like these, but had several issues with them. They spread too much that they were crispy throughout rather than the described "soft in the center and crisp around the edges". An hour chill in the fridge and putting down closer to 1 inch rather than 1/2 made the end result more like the photos. The almond flavour is also too strong for our tastes, with someone mentioning that it tasted like marzipan. The egg wash could use a couple drops of water to thin out and spread more evenly.

  • Thorium0232 on December 23, 2025

    One of my favorite cookies.

• Coconut and peanut mochi balls

  • AndieEats on February 24, 2026

    I agree that the mochi could probably be rolled out a bit thinner. I ended up cutting mine into 24 pieces and ran out of filling for the last few. Maybe I overcooked the mochi because it wasn't very sticky once I cornstarched the top to roll out, and had a difficult time getting the shredded coconut to stick.

  • Jviney on October 09, 2024

    This works! I think I’d roll my mochi dough a little thinner next time, but also you cannot go too thin or else the dough will not hold together to wrap the peanut filling. Very sweet, very interesting!

• Pau Pau’s steamed cupcakes (Fa gao)

  • qchu204 on January 24, 2024

    This is now my go to recipe to make this for the lunar new year. Easy and has a light sweet flavor.

• Tuna buns

  • sephina on January 07, 2024

    Tastes great with or without mozzarella. Tuna topping amount is appropriate for this size of buns but the buns can hold up to 25% more. I sometimes do that if I can't find the right sized tuna cans and need to size up. I don't reduce the proportion of mayonnaise to less than 80% indicated, so that the topping doesn't dry out while baking.

  • ShayLRoss on January 11, 2026

    Very tasty! I could have increased the amount of filling on the buns, and it would be easy to switch up the tuna mix with other mix ins. Since the bun is the milk bread, it is more on the sweeter side, so modifications will need to consider the flavor profile.

• Turnip cake (Lo bak gao)

  • ShayLRoss on January 11, 2026

    Really enjoyed this! It does take a number of steps and a few hours for the cooling, but worth it for the savory results with a crisp edge and soft interior. It's a little too savory for breakfast so I've been adding it as a side dish with lunch and dinner.

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