メロンパン /melon-pan/ n. a type of sweet bun with a cookie crust on top.
Melon-pan, or literally melon bread, derives its name from the fact that the patterned cookie crust portion makes it look muskmelon or a cantaloupe.
Making it is made up of 3 main parts and is actually quite easy once you get the hang of it.
Ingredients
Dough A
Bread flour 170 g
Dry Yeast 2 Tsp
(Sugar for the Yeast 1/2 Tsp)
Warm water 100 ml
Sugar 1 Tbsp
Dough B
Bread flour 100 g
Warm water 2 Tbsp
Sugar 50 g
Salt 1/2 tsp
Egg 1/2
Butter 1 Tbsp
Cookie Crust
Flour 180 g
Baking powder 2/3 tsp
Butter 40 g
Sugar 80 g
Egg 1
Melon essence or vanilla essence for flavor (optional)
Prep Work
1) Sift the bread flours
2) Sift the flour with the baking powder a few 2 to 3 times
3) Leave butter and eggs out at room temperature
Directions
Dough A
1) Put 50 ml of warm water in a bowl and add the sugar and mix to dissolve. Once dissolved, add in the dry yeast, mixing lightly, and leaving it for a while.
*Tips*
Yeast becomes active when the temperature is over 25 degrees and under 40 degrees.
So, a good tip is to put the water/sugar/yeast mixture in a small bowl and take that bowl and put it in a bigger bowl filled with hot water (see picture below). And make sure the water is hot enough so that the yeast mixture will reach the desired temperature.
It will slowly starting foaming up.
And up, and when it's done is should look very fluffy (see picture below).
2) Take the rest of the warm water (50 ml) and dissolve sugar in it.
3) In a large bowl, mix the flour and the sugar/water mixture from step 2 with a wooden spoon. Once yeast mixture has foamed up enough, add it and continue mixing.
4) Start kneading the dough by hand until it separates from the bowl and becomes one firm dough.
5) Take dough out of bowl and knead on a bread board until smooth. (*Tip* If you don't have a bread board you can just use a wooden cutting board)
6) Once dough is smooth, ball it up nicely, so the surface should be smooth. Return to bowl.
7) Now you need to allow the dough to rise. To do this, find a bowl larger than the one with the dough in it, and fill it up with hot water between 35 to 40 degrees. Float the bowl with the dough in the larger bowl, and cover with plastic wrap to trap the heat. Let it stand for 30 - 40 min, until the dough has tripled in size.
*Tip*
To prevent the dough from rising too much, do 30 minute first and then do a finger test. If it hasn't risen enough, cover again and let it expand for the rest of the 10 minute.
8) Do a finger test (dip your finger in flour first then poke middle of dough. If dough is done rising, the hoel will stay put. If not, it will slowly bounce back, if it's too much, the area around the hole will sink).
If bread has risen enough, take dough out on bread board and release the air trapped inside (do this by taking palms of your hand and pressing down on the dough)
Dough B
1) In a medium sized bowl, mix warm water, sugar, salt and egg together.
2) Mix into the flour (in a large bowl) the above water mixture and Dough A.
Mix everything by hand. Knead until it forms into one solid ball of dough.
3) Take dough out of bowl and knead well on bread board. Then return dough to bowl again and knead in the butter. Once butter is mixed in, return dough to bread board and knead even more!
*Tip*
How do you know that the dough is kneaded enough?
Take a dough cutter/scrapper, cut off a piece of the dough. Using your finger, gently spread the dough evenly until it is thin enough where you can faintly see through it (see below). If you can pull the dough to this extent without the dough breaking, then you are done! This means enough gluten was built up.
4) Once you have finished kneading the dough, roll it up into a smooth ball and return to a clean bowl.
Float the bowl with the dough in another bowl with hot water 35 to 40 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the dough is 2.5 to 3 times bigger.
Cookie Crust
(Make the cookie crust while the dough is rising. BUT, if this is your first time making bread, I would suggest making the cookie crust first at the very beginning and leaving it in the fridge while you prepare the dough)
1) Cream butter in a bowl until fluffy with an electric mixer.
2) Add sugar into the butter (separate into 2 or 3 times). Mix until smooth and until mixture turns whitish.
3) Beat egg in a separate bowl then slowly add into butter mixture. Optional: add melon essence or vanilla essence to add flavor (but not both).
4) Sift in flour and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula. You don't have to mix it really well at this point, just enough so everything is mixed together (it's completely fine if it's still dry and floury looking)
Then pour out the mixture onto dry linen. and fold the dough with your hands but making sure you don't heat up the dough with your hand (that'll cause the butter in the dough to melt). Fold until it is one piece of dough...if that makes sense. Form a ball and plastic wrap it and leave in fridge for about 20 minutes.
Putting Everything Together (dun dun dun)!!!
1) Going back to the rising dough. Do a finger test to see if it has finished rising. Once it is done, take it out on a bread board and release the gas.
2) Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Shape dough into a smooth ball.
Fold and then pinch dough at the bottom to form the balls.
Make sure you face the pinched part down and line them up on dry linen. Cover with dry linen and let rise for about 20 minutes or until it rises 1.5 times.
3) While dough is rising, take cookie dough out of the fridge and divide into 12 pieces. Roll into a ball.
4) Lightly flour a piece of linen and roll the ball of cookie dough out just enough so that it covers the bottom of the dough by a bit.
5) Back to the bread dough. After letting it rise, cover with the cookie dough. It should be lightly "hugging" the bread dough.
6) Take the back of a knife and make lines on them to make them look like melons. You can use whatever to do this, but back of a knife works best.
7) Line up the bread on a lightly greased (buttered) baking sheet.
8) Next step is the final rising of the bread. Keep the temperature around the bread at around 38 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the bread has doubled in size.
*Tip*
Some ovens have special functions to let you do this or the easy way is to get a tub or container that is bigger than the baking sheet. Fill with really hot water, keep tray over this water by using a rack or anything that works so that the tray doesn't touch the water. Cover the container so the heat is trapped in.
9) Pre-heat oven to 190 degrees C or 375 degrees F, 10 to 15 minute before baking.
10) Once the bread has risen enough, lightly sprinkle granulated sugar over the bread.
Bake in oven for 7 to 8 minutes. Then lower the temperature of the oven by about 20 to 40 degrees C, then bake for another 5 minutes.
DONE! ENJOY!
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