I'll admit it. I'm completely obsessed with bread and everything related to its starchy goodness. Another reason I love bread is because I can study while it rises for 1 - 2 hours and study some more while it proofs. It's pretty much the ultimate study break, period. (You can see the hematocrit/left shift in the distance there...)Melonpan is a sweet bread that's covered by a thin layer of cookie dough. Does it taste like melons? No, (although if you use melon extract you probably could...) and it's named so because of its appearance rather than taste. It's quite similar to Hong Kong's pineapple bun but the cookie dough on the melonpan is crispier and the dough itself is less buttery.
I am a firm believer that it is absolutely necessary to weigh out ingredients vs. volume measuring when it comes to bread making. My 1 cup of flour isn't going to equal your 1 cup of flour but a scale never lies. Bread making is science and the end result is art.
Melonpan
Original
Ingredients (Bread):
- Bread flour 200g
- Salt 1/2 tea
- Sugar 20g
- Dry yeast 4g
- Lukewarm water 100g
- Egg 20g (beaten)
- Butter 20g (softened, you can't knead in rock, solid butter...)
Ingredients (Cookie Dough):
- Butter 40g
- Sugar 40g
- Egg 40g
- Lemon zest 1/2 - 1 tea (depending on how lemony you want it)
- Drop of lemon essence (you can use the juice from your zested lemon)
- Cake flour 120g (you can use all-purpose)
- Baking powder 1/2 tea
1) Activate the yeast (if needed) by mixing it into the water w/ a little bit of sugar. Like... 1/4 teaspoon. This is just to give the yeast something to chew on until it gets to go in. Leave until activated.
2) In a mixing bowl add the bread flour, salt, sugar, egg and the yeast water mixture. Get a rough dough going and knead for about 5 minutes or so.
3) When the gluten has developed about halfway, add in your butter. Why do we add in the butter now? If you add fats too early on in the kneading process, the fat will coat the flour granules and prevent gluten development. This leads to a failure in the windowpane test. Speaking of the windowpane test, continue to knead until you pass the test. About 5 more minutes.
**Okay, technically if the overall dough uses less than 10% fat you can add in your fat at the start but to form good habits just add it in later. It's really hard to overknead if kneading by hand but with the breadmachine, that's a different story. I'm not sure how long you need to knead it in a breadmachine but if you'd like to send me one I'd be more than happy to "test" it for you...**
4) Once the dough is smooth and elastic, lightly oil a container/bowl and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour, or until double its size.
5) Time to make the cookie dough. Cream the butter with sugar and once creamed, add in your egg and lemon essence.
6) Add in half of the cake flour, baking powder and lemon zest into the wet works and fold that over. Add the other half in and keep folding until you have a nice consistency. Chill in the refrigerator until needed.
7) Bread done rising? Good. Lightly degas the dough (please don't beat the crap out of it) and stretch it out into a rough rectangle. Fold it over once and cut into 8 pieces.
8) Form a boule (ball) with each dough and rest the boules for about 10 minutes. Get that cookie dough out of the fridge.
9) Flatten a piece of the cookie dough into a round shape with a rolling pin and cover the bread dough with the cookie dough. Sprinkle a little sugar over each cookie dough and make the classic melonpan pattern.
10) Put the prepared doughs on parchment paper or a baking sheet and let it rise again for 1 more hour or until doubled.
11) Preheat the oven to 340°F (170°C) and bake for 13-15 minutes. You don't want the outside crust to be completely brown and burnt. Bake it just enough until the cookie dough is nice and firm.
12) Resist the temptation to eat and cool at least 15 minutes.
Once you get comfortable with the recipe, you can do a lot of variations with it. I added a little matcha to the cookie dough here to get a nice green tea flavor.
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