Polynesian Sweet Bread {Bread Machine Recipe} (2024)

FAQs

Why does Hawaiian bread taste sweet? ›

The recipe combines milk, sugar, yeast, flour, and sometimes pineapple juice to add that delightful sweetness to the roll, and reflects the strong Portuguese influences in Hawaiian cuisine.

But in general, people no longer refer to them as Portuguese sweet bread. Instead, most now simply refer to them as sweet bread. Some enterprising companies even refer to them as Hawaiian sweet bread. But make no mistake, the latest generation of sweet breads in Hawaii owe their existence to Portuguese immigrants.

You add the ingredients, and the bread machine makes and bakes the bread in one handy appliance. Liquid ingredients are added first, then oils or fats, dry ingredients, and finally yeast (if your recipe calls for it). The machine will mix, knead, rise, and bake the dough to a beautifully soft bread with a crisp crust.

Too much heat or humidity might lead to a too-quick rise and a crevice near the center of your bread. Conditions that are too cold might delay proofing or rising, resulting in a super-dense loaf. The bread machine works on a timer and hums along at its regular pace.

The recipe is based on Portuguese sweet bread, which is super rich from plenty of eggs, butter, and sugar. And, in case you're wondering, yes! King's Hawaiian really did start in Hawaii.

But like many popular Hawaiian foods, they weren't exactly native. Sweetened breads came to the islands with the Portuguese immigrants who flooded Hawaii in the mid-to-late 19th century to work the livestock ranches and sugarcane plantations.

“That's a tradition from the old country,” Goretti said. Goretti was referring to her native country of Portugal, where it is customary to eat sweet bread with a hard-boiled egg baked into its center on Easter Sunday. The egg symbolizes new life and the resurrection of Christ.

So to make these buns as “Hawaiian” as possible, I added (you guessed it) pineapple juice as a sweetener in the recipe. The King's Hawaiian rolls don't list pineapple juice as an ingredient, but these buns taste remarkably similar.

Hawaiian bread is sweet, fluffy, and so delicious. This recipe is easy to make and will bring the flavor of Hawaii home from vacation. Skip the store-bought stuff and make Hawaiian bread at home!

Making bread from a machine is marginally cheaper than buying it, as long as you eat bread frequently enough to offset the cost of the appliance. Specifically, I see this as an investment that's smart for households that go through bread quickly, like large families or homes with multiple roommates.

Can I leave my bread maker unattended? ›

Always turn off the bread maker at the socket when not in use.

King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, with its high gluten, is an excellent flour for bread machines. Numerous people have told us that their recipes worked in the bread machine using King Arthur, when they didn't work with other all-purpose flours.

In a 2017 article for TASTE, Tatiana Bautista argued that a widespread fear of carbs during the late '90s and early '00s led to the bread machine's demise. The gluten-free movement probably didn't help either. But things are changing, and bread machines are becoming relevant once again.

For best results, use bread flour. "Bread machine bread flour" is the same thing as bread flour; both contain more gluten than all-purpose flour.

The Very Best: Instant Yeast

Instant yeast is the only yeast I ever use in my baking. Always have and always will. The yeast of choice in most restaurant kitchens and commercial bakeries, it's easy and convenient.

Salivary amylase present in the saliva breaks down the starch in the bread into maltose (sugar) which is sweet in taste.

Amylase, as well as being found in pancreatic fluid, is also found in saliva, therefore when you are chewing the bread, the amylase in saliva interacts with the starch in the bread, breaking it down to produce simple sugars - these simple sugars hence make the bread taste sweet.

Dysgeusia is a taste disorder. People with this condition feel that all foods taste metallic, sweet, sour or bitter. Many things can cause dysgeusia, like smoking, medical conditions, medication or poor oral hygiene.

Hawaiian bread is so good because it's soft and stretchy, and it's got just a hint of tangy yeastiness, with a slight sweet flavor that just teases your tastebuds.