Japanese Milk Bread Lab73 recipes

Japanese Milk Bread Lab

Two overlapping styles in 73 Japanese milk bread recipes

Leave the recipe names aside and group the 73 recipes by their 6 ingredient ratios alone, so that recipes built alike land together. Each group is named only by the numbers: the ingredients where its recipes sit furthest from the middle of all 73.

The data splits best into two groups, but they overlap: a silhouette of 0.19, on a scale where 0 is no separation and 1 is complete. Read them as tendencies within one broad spread rather than separate kinds of Japanese milk bread.

The recipes on one map

Every recipe, placed on the two directions along which the ratios vary most (a principal component projection). Close dots are recipes built alike. The lettered rings mark the middle of each group.

AB
Across →
More yeast, sugar and egg to the right; 33% of the variation.
Up ↑
More salt and liquid upward; 21% of the variation.

Along the first direction yeast, sugar, egg and butter all rise together, each measured against the flour. A recipe sits far along it by using more of them or by using less flour, which the ratios cannot tell apart. The groups sit apart mostly along this direction.

The two groups

ALess yeast and sugar

38 recipes · 52% of all 73 · median oven 350°F (175°C), 33 min

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Yeastmedian 1.3% vs 1.8% for all

    average rank: 30th percentile of all recipes

  • Sugarmedian 10% vs 13% for all

    average rank: 34th percentile of all recipes

  • Buttermedian 10% vs 13% for all

    average rank: 37th percentile of all recipes

Its median recipe, at 350 g flour

Median recipe of group A in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup AAll
Liquid255 g235 g
Butter35 g46 g
Sugar35 g44 g
Egg39 g49 g
Salt4.5 g6 g
Yeast4.5 g6 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 350 g of flour.

Closest to the middle of the group

BMore yeast and sugar

35 recipes · 48% of all 73 · median oven 350°F (175°C), 30 min

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Yeastmedian 2% vs 1.8% for all

    average rank: 72nd percentile of all recipes

  • Sugarmedian 15% vs 13% for all

    average rank: 67th percentile of all recipes

  • Buttermedian 15% vs 13% for all

    average rank: 64th percentile of all recipes

Its median recipe, at 350 g flour

Median recipe of group B in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup BAll
Liquid215 g235 g
Butter55 g46 g
Sugar50 g44 g
Egg55 g49 g
Salt6 g6 g
Yeast7 g6 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 350 g of flour.

Closest to the middle of the group

How the groups are found

Each ratio is converted to a z-score (how many standard deviations a recipe sits from the mean), capped at 3 so one extreme recipe cannot claim a group, and k-means sorts the recipes into k groups, trying k from 2 to 3. Each k runs from 16 fixed starting points and keeps the tightest result, so the page is the same on every build. No group may hold fewer than 8 recipes.

The number of groups is the one with the best silhouette, which compares how close each recipe is to its own group with how close it is to the next one. By number of groups: 2 groups 0.19 · 3 groups 0.18. At 0.25 or more the page calls the groups separate; from 0.18 to 0.25, overlapping; under 0.18, no clear styles.

A group's name lists the one to three ingredients where its recipes rank furthest from the middle of all 73, on average. “More” and “less” are relative to the whole dataset, and the names say nothing about texture or taste, which the ratios alone do not show. The median recipe of a group is, like the typical recipe on the overview, the middle of each ingredient separately, not one real recipe. The recipes listed under each group are the ones nearest its center, at most two from any one site.