Cream Melon Pan

A soft milk bun with a crackly, sugared cookie crust on top (scored to look like a melon). It's split and filled with whipped cream, the way the trending Tokyo bakery Amam Dacotan serves it.

• Yield: ~50 buns (40 g dough + 20 g crust each), or ~80 minis (25 g + 12 g)
• Equipment: mixer, proofer, oven, freezer, piping bag
• Allergens: gluten (wheat), milk, egg

Ingredients

Bun: 1 batch milk bread dough, divided and rounded but not frozen yet.

Cookie crust

Ingredient	Amount
Butter, soft	250 g
Sugar	250 g
Eggs	150 g (3)
Plain flour (vetemjöl)	500 g
Baking powder	5 g
Vanilla sugar or vanilla paste	10 g
Granulated sugar, for dipping	~200 g

Cream filling: 1000 g cream + 80 g icing sugar, whipped. Flavour with 20 g matcha or 25 g hojicha powder if you like.

Method

1. Crust: cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then fold in the flour, baking powder and vanilla. Chill for 30 min so it firms up.
2. Divide the crust into 20 g pieces (12 g for minis).
3. Flatten a crust piece between two sheets of plastic into a disc slightly wider than the dough ball.
4. Lay the disc over a dough ball and gently cup it so it covers the top and sides, leaving the bottom bare.
5. Dip the crust side in granulated sugar. Score a crosshatch pattern with a bench scraper. Don't cut through to the dough.
6. Freeze on trays, then bag. Use within 3 weeks.

Baking

1. Proof from frozen at 30 °C / 65–70% humidity for about 90 min. Use lower humidity than for normal buns so the crust doesn't melt.
2. Bake at 175–180 °C for 13–15 min until the crust is pale golden. Don't egg-wash.
3. Cool completely.

Finishing

Split from the side (not all the way through) and pipe in whipped cream. Keep filled melon pan chilled on the buffet, or fill small batches during service.

Variations

• Matcha melon pan: replace 20 g of the crust flour with matcha.
• Kanelbulle melon pan: add 10 g cinnamon to the crust and mix cinnamon into the dipping sugar.
• Unfilled: serve plain as an ambient item. It's still very good, and needs no cooling.