In a small saucepan over low heat, combine milk, 3 tablespoons (42g) butter, honey, vanilla bean seeds and scraped vanilla bean pod. Heat the mixture until it just barely scalds and you can see steam coming up from the surface. Remove from heat, cover the pan and let steep until the mixture cools down to 105-110°F. It will take around 20 to 30 minutes – this allows the vanilla flavour to further infuse the milk. Make sure you measure the temperature because if it is too hot, it will kill the yeast. Remove and discard vanilla pods. If you are using traditional active dry yeast, stir it into the cooled (105-110°F) milk mixture to activate it and wait about 10 minutes until it appears frothy.

In a measuring jug with a pouring spout, whisk together eggs and sugar. Discard the vanilla pods that were steeping in the milk and then whisk the warm milk mixture to the egg mixture. Making sure to scrape the bottom of the saucepan with a spatula to get all of those gorgeous vanilla bean seeds.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine 2 ¾ cups (390g) flour and instant yeast. Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment. Turn it on low and mix on speed 2 while gradually adding the milk mixture. Add salt. Mix for 4 minutes.

Check the consistency of the dough and add up to 50g (⅓ cup) more flour as necessary so that it forms a mass and does not rest as a sticky pool at the bottom of the bowl. Add remaining 2 tablespoons (28g) of soft butter bit by bit and continue to mix on speed 2 for 8-10 minutes longer, stopping to scrape down the bowl occasionally. It might look like the butter won’t incorporate at first but trust that it will. The dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl and form webs by the end of the kneading time. It will be very soft, supple and tacky, but it should not be wet and sticky. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead by hand for a minute.

Lightly grease a large bowl with about 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil. Form the dough into a ball, place it in the bowl and turn to coat evenly with the oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place until it doubles in size, about 1 ½ to 2 hours. This dough will take longer than normal bread dough to rise because of the high concentration of sugar which is hygroscopic (absorbs water) and leaves less water available for the yeast to work and reproduce.

When the dough has doubled, press it down very gently with your fists to release any over-sized air bubbles (you may refrigerate the dough at this point for 15 minutes if you think it is too soft to work with), and then turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface. Do not knead the dough or it will become too elastic and difficult to roll. It will feel very soft, silky and spongy. Pat it out into a rectangle. If it retracts too much, then cover it on your bench and let it rest for 5 minutes. Use a rolling pin to roll it into a 20x12-inch rectangle.