Sourdough sandwich loaf with sesame - and sesame honey cup cake

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Note: 19% of the flour is in levain

Note: total flour is 250g, fit my Chinese small-ish pullman pan. For 8X4 US loaf tin, I suggest to use about 270g of total flour. For KAF 13X4X4 pullman pan, I would suggest using about 430g of total flour.

- levain

starter (100%), 13g

water, 22g

bread flour, 41g

1. Mix and let fermentation at room temp (73F) for 12 hours.

- Final Dough
bread flour, 203g
sugar, 10g
salt, 5g
butter, 15g, softened
powdered milk, 13g
milk, 50g
water, 107g
sesame, 35g
levain, all

1. Mix everything until stage 3 of windowpane (-30sec), see this post for details.

2. Rise at room temp for 2 hours, punch down, put in fridge overnight.

3. Takeout, divide, round, rest for 1 hour. shape as instructed here for sandwich loaf.

4. rise at room temp for about 5 hours. For my pullman pan, it should be about 80% full; for US 8x4inch pan, it should be about one inch above the edge. The dough would have tripled by then, if it can't, your kneading is not enough or over.

5. Bake at 375F for 45min, brush with butter when warm.

This time I opted to use the pullman pan lid to create a flat top loaf.

According to my Japanese baking books, flat top pullman loaves should NOT have sharp corners and edges, instead, they should have round smooth edges. In order to achieve that, don't let the dough proof too close to the top, 80% full is the max. If you let it proof too long, you will not only have sharp edges, the crumb would also be uneven.

Sesame brings so much fragrance to any baked goods, this bread is no exception. Plus it's velvety soft.

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I also made honey sesame cupcake following this recipe.

There is tahini (sesame paste) as well as toasted sesame in the cake, great flavor. Next time I will use cake flour intead of AP to make the cake lighter, less muffin like.

The cream cheese icing is the bomb! Honey and tahini and sesame seeds go so well together. Don't skip it. In fact I made extra to just lick off!