This is a classic peanut butter bread to buy if you go to any Korean bakery! This bread is fluffy and soft on the inside with delicious little crumbles of peanut butter streusel covered on top. Soboro Bread (소보로빵), also called Gombo Bbang (곰보빵), is the perfect treat if you love peanut butter!
📚 History
The word “Soboro” originates from Japan and refers to ground meat that has been minced and cooked into small, crumbled pieces. The word is quite similar to “streusel” in German which means a crumbly topping made from flour, sugar and fat. Bread was popularized in the late 1980’s after Korea received an influx of flour as food aid from the USA after the Korean War.
🛒 Ingredient notes
- Bread Flour: Bread flour has more gluten in it than all purpose flour so use this if you want to ensure a springy texture!
- Unsalted Butter: Butter will give your bread extra flavor and also keep it moist!
- Peanut Butter: Peanut butter will flavor the streusel topping for this bread! I like to use creamy peanut butter as it gives the streusel more of a classic look
- Sugar: White sugar is used for the dough while brown sugar is used for the streusel.
- Milk: Whole milk will make your bread more moist but 2% milk can work as well!
- Baking Powder: Baking powder will give your streusel an extra crumbly texture.
- Active Dry Yeast : As your bread does not have any chemical leaveners, the yeast will give your bread all the rise!
- Salt: Always add a little salt to bring out the flavors in your bread.
🗒️ Instructions
This bread is easy to make but requires some waiting time in between each steps to ensure bouncy, soft bread!
Before you start: Heat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Step 1. Heat up milk in a small bowl to 105F-115F to activate your yeast and then put in a 1/2 tablespoon of sugar along with active dry yeast and wait 5 minutes until its frothy.
Step 2. Add bread flour, unsalted room temperature butter and sugar into the bowl of your electric mixer and then add in yeast mixture. Mix on medium until dough no longer sticks to the side of the bowl. A good way to check if it is ready is if you stick a finger into the dough and it doesn’t stick to it.
Step 3. Place dough in a greased bowl and then cover it in plastic wrap. Then let it rest in a warm area for 1 1/2 hour until it doubles in size.
Step 4. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and divide it into 8 equal balls. Then flatten each ball down into a pancake shape and then tuck the the edges of the circle back into itself to create a sphere. Take plastic wrap to cover the dough balls to prevent it from drying it out. so that it doesn’t dry out and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
Step 5. Make peanut butter streusel by combining room temperature butter, peanut butter, flour, brown sugar and baking powder.
Step 6. Take out a small bowl of water and dip the dough 3/4 of the way into the water and then press each dough into the streusel filling. The water helps the streusel filling stick to the top but if you’re having difficulty you can add additional streusel on top with your hands.
Step 7. Once your dough has been covered with the streusel filling you want to let it rest. Allowing it to rest a second time gives these bread the cracked top look as the streusel will crack as the dough expands.
Step 8. Bake for 10 minutes but make sure you only bake them 4 at a time as crowding the pan will make your bread look more flat.
👩🍳 Top tips
- Use room temperature butter (not melted)! To speed up this process you can cut up your butter into small pieces and microwave in 10 second spurts.
- Don’t over-mix your batter or you will end up with dense cookies.
- Scrape the sides of your bowl as you mix to make sure you are incorporating all your ingredients together.
🧺 Storage tips
- Room Temperature: Store at room temperature wrapped in an an airtight container for up to 3 days.
- Fridge: Cool bread completely and store them in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
🔎 Related recipes
Want more bread recipes? Here area few more!
Moist Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread
📖 Recipe
Korean Peanut Butter Streusel Bread (Soboro Bread)
Equipment
- Electric Mixer with dough hook
Ingredients
Soboro Bread
- 1 3/4 Cup Bread Flour (220 Grams)
- 2 1/2 tbsp White Granulated Sugar (31 Grams)
- 1 Package Active Dry Yeast (7 Grams)
- 1/3 Cup + 1 tbsp Whole Milk (95 Grams)
- 3 tbsp Unsalted Butter (43 Grams)
- 1 tsp Salt (6 Grams)
Peanut Butter Streusel
- 3/4 Cup All Purpose Flour (90 Grams)
- 2 tbsp Unsalted Butter (28 Grams)
- 1/4 Cup Light Brown Sugar (50 Grams)
- 1 tbsp Creamy Peanut Butter (15 grams)
- 1/4 tsp Baking Powder (1 Gram)
- 1 Egg Yolk (Grade A Large)
Instructions
Soboro Bread
- Heat oven to 350F and prepare a cookie sheet pan with parchment paper.
- Heat up milk in the microwave for until 105F-115F, add whisk in a tbsp of sugar and active dry yeast. Set a timer for 5 minutes and wait until it is frothy.
- Mix flour, white granulated sugar, room temperature butter and salt in a bowl and mix until combined.
- Add yeast mixture into the dry ingredients and mix on medium (around 3-5 minutes) with a dough hook until the dough doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl!
- Take out a greased bowl to place your dough and cover with saran wrap. Leave the dough for an hour or until it has doubled in size.
- Place dough on a lightly floured surface and divide it into 8 equal balls. Then flatten each ball down into a pancake shape and then tuck the the edges of the circle back into itself to create a sphere. Take plastic wrap to cover the dough balls to prevent it from drying it out. so that it doesn't dry out and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
- Take out a small bowl and add water the bowl. Dip a dough ball into the water 3/4 of the way and then press the dough ball into the peanut butter streusel so that it sticks the the bread.
- Once each dough ball has been covered with the filling, let is rest again for 30 minutes before baking so that it can puff up again!
- Bake for 10 minutes at 4 batches at a time as crowding your pan can cause your buns to deflate.
Peanut Butter Streusel
- Mix peanut butter, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, room temperature butter and an egg yolk until it resembles course sand.
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