Japanese Melon Pan

I was lucky enough to get hold of this book during our weekly visits to the library. I like to borrow all books related to bread making...even though I may not even try any of the recipes from the books I borrowed. However, this is one book that I will try not just one, but several recipes. Sometimes I do borrow books just to look at the illustrations and try to learn, or more exactly, 'copycat' the style, composition and angle of the beautiful shots :') Well, if you were as keen as me, you may have already clicked on the above link, and would have realised that I have did just that :)



These are Japanese Melon Pans or Melon Buns. Pans mean bread in Japanese. They are actually bread buns covered with a layer of pastry, or cookie-like dough. Each dough is left for second proofing after the pastry layer is wrapped around it. The inner bread dough will rise and cause the outer pastry layer to crack all over the surface. The name came about as the appearance of the cracked surface resembles a rock melon. In addition, for a basic or standard Japanese melon pan, melon extract is commonly used to add fragrance. Ever since I came across this recipe, Japanese melon pan has been on my to-do list, I even managed to get hold of the exact cookie cutter recently, and yet I didn't get to work on it still this morning.


I remembered the afternoon when we came home with this library book...everyone of us were busy with our own things...except my younger child. He must be quite bored to have actually browse through this baking book. He came to me with the book, showed me the page of the chocolate chips melon pans and told me specifically he would like to have one of those.


Since the recipe will yield a dozen buns, I decided that I would make a few with chocolate chips and the rest plain, just to keep my promise ;) Even though it was not a very easy task for me to make these buns, I enjoyed the entire process. I was glad that I made the bread dough by hand. It was a nice dough to work with....not so sticky and wet, and I was actually having fun kneading and banging the dough on the tabletop :)

The pastry dough was very soft, fortunately, after chilling them in the fridge for at least half-an-hour, it was more manageable to work with.


I used the small cookie cutters which I bought recently to stamp out various patterns on the pastry layer. This one is made with the bear-shape cutter.


I tried out different patterns just to see how each version will turn out. The one on the bottom left is a typical Japanese Melon Pan.


Finally, after much 'hard' work, the finished product. Even I tried turning the baking tray around a few times, the buns were not evenly browned, thanks to my not-so-reliable oven.


After wrapping the bread dough with the pastry layer, the buns were coated with a layer of caster sugar. The sugar appeared to be dissolved into the pastry while the buns were left for second proofing. I was surprised to see the sugar crystals on the surface after the buns were baked.


Hmmm, a broken heart! After comparing the various cutters used, I found out that the surface will not be nice if the cutter is too big...I think the smaller cutters will give better appearance.


There's no filling added to this standard melon pan. The buns tasted good to me. The bread layer was soft while the crispy pastry layer was not very oily, unlike those Hong Kong style bo lo buns or pineapple buns. Since I have not tried any Japanese melon pans before, I really wouldn't know how the taste should be. Anyway, I have already lined up a few other interesting melon pan variations which I'm gonna try, hopefully, very soon!


Japanese Melon Pan

Ingredients:
(makes about 12 buns)

Bread Dough:
300g bread flour
6g instant yeast
36g caster sugar
5g salt
6g skim milk powder (I used my boy's milk powder)
200g warm water (37~38 degC) (I didn't bother, just made sure water is not cold)
30g unsalted butter (bring to room temperature)

Pastry layer
80g unsalted butter (bring to room temperature)
90g caster sugar
80g egg, lightly beaten (oh, I hate weighing eggs!)
200g cake flour
2g baking powder
some melon extract (I leave this out as I don't have this)

some caster sugar for dusting/coating

How I made them:

1. Sift bread flour, caster sugar, salt, milk powder into a mixing bowl. Add in instant yeast and mix the powdered mixture a little.
2. Add in warm water. DO NOT add in all the water at one go, leave a little bit so as to adjust the texture of the dough.
3. Mix the ingredients with hand and slowly form into a dough. Add the remaining water if it is too dry.
4. Transfer dough to work surface. Knead until the dough longer sticks to the work surface. This should take about less than 5 mins.
5. Flatten the dough and add in the butter. Continue to knead. Initially, the dough will be very oily, after a few kneads, the butter will be absorbed by the dough. Continue to knead until the dough no longer feel sticky to your hand and will not stick to the work surface. This should take about 15 to 20 mins.
6. Place dough in a lightly greased (with butter) bowl, cover with cling wrap and let proof for about one hour, or until double in bulk.
7. While the dough is proofing, prepare the pastry layer. With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until mixture turns pale.
8. Add in a few drops of melon extract if desired.
9. Add in lightly beaten eggs in 3 addition. Beat well after each addition.
10. Sift over cake flour and baking powder. Mix with a spatula until flour mixture is fully incorporate. Divide into 12 portions, about 35~40g each. For the chocolate chips version, wrapped some chocolate chips into each pastry dough. Place in a tray and let the dough chill in the fridge for at least 30 mins.
11. Punch out the gas in the bread dough and divide into 12 portion, about 45g each. Roll into rounds. Cover with a damp cloth or cling wrap and let the dough relax for 10mins.
12. Remove chilled pastry dough from the fridge. Roll out each dough in between 2 layers of cling wraps (I used clear plastic bags). Roll the bread dough again into rounds again. Remove the top layer of the cling wrap and place the bread dough onto the pastry dough. With the bottom layer of the cling wrap still intact, wrap the pastry dough around the bread dough. Carefully remove the bottom layer of the cling wrap, at the same time, smoothing the edges of the pastry dough. NOTE: DO NOT cover the Entire bread dough with the pastry dough. Leave the bottom 2 ~ 3 cm uncovered. The dough needs the space to expand, otherwise the pastry dough will burst and the resulting appearance will not be very pleasing.
13. Coat the exterior with caster sugar, stamp patterns on the surface with cookie cutters or decorate as desired. Leave doughs to proof for the second time for about 40 ~ 50mins.
14. Bake in pre-heated oven at 170 deg C (I set mine as 180 deg C) for 10 ~ 12 mins. Note: mine took 20mins to brown!

Recipe source: 酥皮麵包大集合by 佐藤律子