Japanese Melon Buns (melon-pan) Soft bread rolls wrapped in a cookie-like crisp crust.

I would have never been able to make this without the help of mianbao translating it and helping me out with the baking powder amount. This is for room temperatures around 20C (original recipe was for room temps at 30C and were much less than what worked out for me). It's a lot of steps and waiting around for the dough to rise but they're well worth it! Melon Dough (for the outside layer) 60 g plain flour (all-purpose) 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 30 g caster sugar (superfine sugar) 1/2 egg 20 g unsalted butter 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (can use a few drops of melon essence if available) 5 or so chocolate chips per bun, so 25 chocolate chips or thereabouts (for chocolate chip variation) sugar, large grained (to decorate) Bread dough (for the inside) 200 g bread flour (strong flour) 1 teaspoon dry yeast 2 tablespoons sugar 1 pinch salt 100 ml milk 1/2 egg 5 g butter 5 servings 5 buns 3 hours 1 hr prep Prep work: Make sure butter and eggs are at room temperature. Beat 1 egg and divide it equally. Warm milk until you can hold your little finger in it for a full 10 seconds without pain. To make the melon dough (outside portion): Beat softened butter until pale and creamy. Beat in sugar until fluffy. 1) Add egg and beat until smooth. 2) Add flour and baking powder and mix into the butter with a cutting or folding motion until fully mixed inches 3) Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes in the fridge. 4) Weigh the dough and divide it as equally as possible into 5 portions. 5) Roll portion into a ball and place one ball on a sheet of plastic wrap and top with another layer of plastic wrap. Roll out thinly. should be around or larger than 4inches in diameter and as round and circular as possible. 6) Set aside stack of melon dough. To make the bread dough and bake: 1) Put 100g of bread flour, sugar, dry yeast and salt into a bowl, with the salt not touching the yeast.

2) Add the egg and warmed milk little by little, mixing with your hand. Add enough of the reserved flour to make a soft and slightly sticky dough. Once it has been kneaded break up the butter into small pieces with your hands and mix in. 3) Knead until smooth. The dough has been kneaded enough when it is smooth and when you pull a piece of the dough, you can make a thin membrane easily with it. (or until very elastic and smooth) 4) Place dough in an oiled bowl and let rise until doubled. 5) Punch down dough to get rid of any large airbubbles and knead lightly. 6) Weight the dough and divide the dough as evenly as possible into 5 pieces. 7) Shape the dough so the top is rounded and taut. You can do this by using the side of your hands and your smallest fingers to pull the dough from the top to underneath the ball of dough. 8) Leave rounded balls of dough on a floured board, covered with a clean tea towel, for 20 minutes. 9) Take a portion of the melon dough and remove top layer of plastic wrap only. **If doing the chocolate chip version, sprinkle or place the chocolate chips on top of the cookie dough after removing top layer of plastic wrap. 10) Place ball of slightly risen bread dough on top of the melon dough, and by lifting the corners of the plastic wrap, mould the dough around the ball. Be careful to not crush the ball of dough. 11) Once the melon dough is attached all around the bread dough, you can remove the plastic wrap and place on a siliconized baking paper (parchment paper or greased) on a baking sheet. 12) Once all bread dough balls have been covered with the melon dough, make light crisscross indentions in the dough covering the balls, trying not to deflate or crush them. 13) Cover with clean tea towel and let rise for 1hour or until doubled in size again. 14) Uncover and sprinkle with course sugar. 15) Bake at 180C (356F) for 8 minutes, then lower temperature to 160C (320F) and bake for 10 minutes longer. If you have a fan oven, bake at 175C (347F) for 8 minutes and 150C (302F) for 10 minutes.