Melon Pan
Also called melonpan, Japanese melon bread
Japanese sweet buns under a crisp, sandy cookie shell, made over two days with a tangzhong dough.
- Makes
- 12 buns
Ingredients
Amounts are for the recipe. Sizes, times and temperatures in the method are not scaled.
Tangzhong
Bread dough
Cookie shell
Amounts worked out from the other system are rounded.
Method
Day 1
Tangzhong. Whisk the bread flour (12 g1½ tbsp) into the whole milk (60 g¼ cup) in a small saucepan. Cook over low heat, whisking constantly, until it thickens to a paste and reads 65°C (150°F), about 2 minutes. Scrape out and cool to room temperature.
Cookie shell. Mash the butter (69 g5 tbsp) smooth and beat in the granulated sugar (132 g⅔ cup). Add the beaten large egg (1) and the whole milk (8 g1½ tsp) a splash at a time, so the mixture never breaks. Stir in the vanilla (½ tsp). Sift the cake flour (196 g1⅔ cups), cornstarch (34 g5 tbsp), baking powder (2 g½ tsp) and salt (1 g¼ tsp) over the top and fold just until it comes together, stopping the moment no dry flour remains.
Weigh the shell dough (about 490 g) and divide it into 12 equal balls of about 41 g. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Bread dough. Whisk the bread flour (213 g1¾ cups), cake flour (25 g3½ tbsp), granulated sugar (38 g3 tbsp), salt (3 g½ tsp) and yeast (4.5 g1½ tsp). Add the cooled tangzhong, the large egg (1), the egg yolk (1) and the whole milk (28 g2 tbsp). Mix to a shaggy ball and knead 5 minutes. Work in the butter (55 g¼ cup); it will be greasy and hopeless for several minutes, so keep going. Knead until it passes the windowpane test.
Cold retard. Shape into a ball, set it seam side down, cover and refrigerate 12 to 16 hours.
Day 2
Divide and rest. Let the dough sit out about 45 minutes, until pliable. Deflate, weigh (about 495 g) and divide into 12 pieces of about 41 g. Shape into tight balls and rest, covered, 15 minutes at room temperature.
Roll the shells. Roll each chilled shell ball into a 10 cm circle about 4.5 mm thick. If one cracks at the edge it is too cold; wait 2 minutes.
Assemble. Put a shell on your palm and a bread ball on top, seam side up. Flip the pair and pull the shell down around the sides, about two thirds of the way, stopping about 1.5 cm short of the base. If you find yourself sealing the bottom, ease it back up; trapped steam softens the crust from underneath. Press the top into the coarse sugar (35 g3 tbsp), then score a 3 × 3 grid 2 to 3 mm deep.
Final proof. Proof covered at 38°C (100°F) until 1.4 times the size, about 45 minutes. Not doubled.
Bake at 180°C (350°F) on the middle rack for 11 to 13 minutes, until pale gold. Rotate once if they color unevenly, and pull them early rather than late. Cool 5 minutes on a rack.
Notes
- If the shell dough crumbles, beat an egg and add it a teaspoon at a time, working it in by hand after each addition, until the dough holds together when squeezed; expect 1 to 3 tsp. Cold milk works nearly as well. Don't add it all at once, and don't add water. If the butter was cool rather than soft, press the dough together, let it sit 10 minutes at room temperature and work it again before adding anything. If it crumbled even with weighed ingredients, add 10 g more milk to the shell next time.
- A sticky bread dough is correct. In a stand mixer it should clear the sides but tack at the bottom. Adding flour gives a dense, dry crumb. It goes slack again right after the butter goes in, then comes back together within 5 to 10 minutes. By hand, slap and fold on a bare counter with a bench scraper. Stop by the windowpane test, not when it stops feeling sticky.
- If the shell sticks when rolling, fix it with cold, not flour: chill 30 minutes, then roll between sheets of plastic wrap or parchment.
- No baking steel. Bake on a sheet pan. Extra bottom heat scorches the bare base and splits the shell.
- Proof. Stop at 1.4 times. An over-proofed bun outruns its shell and the grid blows apart.
- Salt. Weigh it: a teaspoon of Diamond Crystal is about 2.8 g, a teaspoon of table salt about 6 g.
- If the bread dough fights you at shaping, drop its butter to 45 g next time.
- Best the day they are baked; the shell softens within about 4 hours. Otherwise freeze them, and refresh at 180°C for 3 to 4 minutes.
- Variations. Fill with Yolk-Heavy Pastry Cream, or fold chocolate chips into the shell dough.
- Just One Cookbook's melon pan page has videos of the wrapping motion.