Mini Melon-pans

These are not ice creams...


and they are not muffins either.


They are actually mini melon pans...sweet bread buns covered with a layer of crispy pastry dough. Besides the plain buns, there are also green tea and chocolate ones. The original recipe calls for baking 3 mini buns in a special mould. Since I don't have such moulds, I baked them separately in my muffin cups (it seems like I take forever to finish using up all my muffin liners!). The finished buns looked almost like muffins or scoops of ice creams :)

I could have added too much flour to the pastry dough, and as a result, the dough was quite dry and crumbled easily while I try to wrap it over the bread dough. Upon baking, the pastry crust was a bit too hard :(


Fortunately, the texture of the bread was fine, it was soft and tasted good on it's own. I like the green tea version best, and as usual, my kids prefer the chocolate ones.




Ingredients
(makes 12 mini buns)

Dough Ingredients:
160g bread flour
30g cake flour
25g caster sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp instant yeast
10g milk powder
1 egg yolk
100ml water
15g unsalted butter

1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp green tea powder

Pastry Ingredients:
45g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
40g icing sugar
1 egg yolk
10g milk powder
70g cake flour

1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp green tea powder


Method:

1. Prepare Bread Dough - Place water, egg yolk, salt, sugar, bread flour, cake flour, milk powder and yeast in the pan of the bread machine (according to the sequence as stated in the instruction manual of your bread machine). Select the Dough function of the bread machine and press start. After about 8mins of kneading (the ingredients should form a smooth dough by now), add in the 15g of butter. Let the machine continue to knead the dough. After the kneading cycle has stopped (20mins), Stop and Restart the machine. Continue to let the machine knead for another 10mins.
2. Stop the machine and remove dough from the bread pan. Divide the dough into 3 equal portions (about 120g each). Take one portion of the dough and knead in cocoa powder, until the cocoa powder is fully incorporated into the dough. Repeat the same for the other dough with green tea powder. Leave the third dough plain. Shape each dough into a smooth round and place in separate mixing bowls, cover with cling wrap and let them rise till double in volume about 50 ~ 90mins.
3. Prepare Pastry Dough - With an electric mixer or a manual whisk, cream butter & icing sugar till pale and fluffy. Add in egg yolk gradually and beat well. Add in milk powder and cake flour. Fold with a spatula and gather the mixture to form a dough. Divide the pastry into 3 equal portions. Knead in cocoa powder, green tea powder separately into two of the portions, leave the 3rd portion plain. Divide each pastry dough into 4 smaller portions. You should have 12 doughs in total. Cover with cling wrap and leave it aside for 10 mins.
4. When ready, remove bread doughs and give each dough a few light kneading on a lightly floured work surface. Press out the trapped air as your knead. Divide each dough further into 4 smaller portions (about 30g each) and shape into balls.
5. Flatten each pastry dough into a round disc. Wrap each bread dough with it's corresponding pastry dough. Wrap the pastry dough over about 2/3 of the bread dough, leaving the bottom 1/3 unwrapped.
6. Place doughs in paper muffin cups, cover loosely with a damp cloth or cling wrap and let dough proof for 25 - 30mins or till the dough reaches almost to the rim of the paper cup.
7. Bake at preheated oven at 190 degC for about 18 mins. Rotate the buns halfway into baking to ensure even browning. Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack

Recipe adapted from 孟老师的100道面包