Japanese-sweet-melon - Yes

melonpan

ah, melonpan. or melon bread. This is a Japanese sweet bun that is coated with a cookie dough - you get to eat bread and a cookie at the same time! The name is said to come from the fact that the original melonpan's appearance looked like a cantaloupe (see wikipeadia). It doesn't taste like melon whatsoever (although I have seen some melonpans have melon cream in them).

whenever I see or hear "melonpan" I feel nostalgic. I don't even recall that I had these often growing up. I probably even wasn't a fan of it. But once in a while I feel like having one, so when I saw a recipe in my beloved the Joy of Vegan Baking book, I was excited.

Before reading this recipe, I didn't even know that melonpan has two layers - bread & cookie. Basically you make bread dough and cookie dough separately, and before baking, the bread is coated with cookie dough and baked together. what a fun process! In the photo above, hopefully you can see that the top layer covers the bottom bread dough.

The result of this particular recipe was pretty close to the melonpan I remember, although not exact. I remember the cookie part was more crispy and made a nice contrast to the soft bottom bread. Yet, this definitely satisfied my melonpan cravings, and I'm happy about it.

I'm also happy that Mr. J discovered a new Japanese food he likes. He loved these a lot.

One, perhaps minor, thing though is that this melonpan doesn't have those lovely grids, which makes melonpan's characteristic appearance. That'd be my future project.