Melon pan recipe – How to make Japanese Melon bread (melon ban)

Have you ever had Japanese bread ?
Our food culture is based on rice, but we also have many kinds of own bread as well like An-pan (sweet bean paste in the bread), Curry-pan, Yakisoba-pan etc…
Today I introduce you one of the Japanese bread, Melon pan bread 🙂 (Some on call this melon ban)
It’s sweet bread with bread-dough interior and a cookie-dough with ridges resembling a muskmelon.
So actually you don’t taste any melon flavor (only the shape),  but you will find the taste of melon pan (or melon bread / melon ban) is familiar with you since it’s combination of cookie and bread.
Original melon pan bread doesn’t have any filling, but it’s also nice to put custard cream inside ❤

Ingredients(4 servings):

-Bread part

150g of Bread flour
1 Tablespoon of fat-free milk powder
2 Tablespoons of egg

(A) 1 teaspoon of dry yeast
(A) 2 Tablespoons of sugar
(A)55cc~ of warm water
(B) 30g of butter
(B) a pinch of salt

-cookie part

100g of flour
30g of butter
2 Tablespoon of caster sugar or frozen snow sugar
1/2 of egg
a pinch of vanilla-oil or lemon oil if you like

-Make cookie dough

1.    Place butter in a bowl (room temparature)

2.    Add sugar and mix well until it became smooth (whitish color)

3.    Add half of the beaten egg, mix well, and add the remaining egg and mix again.

4.    Shift the flour in a bawl and mix it with spatura.

5.  Place the dough on a plastic film. Make cylinder shape and place in a fridge for about 30 minutes.

-Make bread dough

1. Place all the (A)s in a cup for 10 minutes.

2. Place bread flour, egg, milk powder in a bawl and add (1), mix well.

3. Add all the (B)s in a same bowl and mix it until it combine together.

4. Place the dough on a big plate, knead and stretching until the dough become smooth, coherent and pliable. (The dough is sticky at first but it’s become stiff)

5. When you have a nice smooth dough ball, put into a ball, cover with plastic film and let rise for about 30 minutes. (The best temperature is about 40 degree C)

6.  Take out the dough, pinch down, and divide into 4 pieces with scraper. Roll each piece into a ball, let rest for 10 minutes under a damp kitchen towel.

7.  Take out the cookie dough and flatten out each piece into a thin round with plastic film. Place the bread dough in the center and turn it upside down. Cover the bread dough with the cookie dough.

8.  Put sugar on the surface and make some slit.

9.   Cover with wet clothe and leave them in a warm place for about 20 minutes.

8.   Prepare the oven to 180 degree C  and bake them for 10 minutes first (to make the cookie dough crispy), then 160 degree C for 12 minutes after.

melon pan (melon bread/melon ban)