Yakitate!!

December 14, 2008 - 23.09

I always had the thought of attempting to bake melon bun in mind. Bupo loves them and I like them as well. Last month or so, I came across a post on DC.com of someone making melon bun. I asked for the recipe and today, I finally found some time to attempt it. Some pictures might be blurry since I’m taking the photos while my hands are a mess.

I’m not a very good cook and I never baked bread before. Prior to starting, I had to go grab the ingredients. While I was familiar with most of the ingredients, I had never use yeast before. So when it says ‘1 packet of dry yeast’ in the recipe, it had me scratching my head. I searched around the supermarket’s baking section and found the yeast literally in packets.

It was my first time using yeast so I was a bit unsure of what I was doing. Following the instructions, I were to add the packet of yeast into 1/4 cup of 37C water. However, I don’t have anything to measure temperature so that was one big ‘guesstimation’. The yeast coming out of the package were these tiny brown-ish pebbles. It had kind of a weird smell to it.

I added a bit of sugar to it and let it sit as indicated in the recipe. After 10 minutes, the yeast had risen a bit and turned a bit foamy. Meanwhile, I was struggling with the dough. I didn’t melt the butter so it wasn’t integrating into the dough properly. I had to squash the chunks with a spoon.

After awhile of butter squashing, I gave up. Since I had to kneed it later anyways, it’ll probably melt into the dough on its own at the current room temperature. The dough at the time was fairly sticky. I added in the yeast and it turned into a puddle of muddy water. I began to question whether I’m doing this correct. But the instruction did mention to add flour as necessary to get rid of the stickiness. So I ended up adding a ton of flour until it was ‘kneedable’, which is to say that the dough doesn’t stick to my hands when I touch it.

I pulled out a baking pan as my kneed surface. Sprinkled some flour and kneed away. The problem was I had no idea how to kneed. So I pushed the dough around, added more flour when it got too sticky. Eventually, it felt like bread dough. Or I should say, it felt like what I expect bread dough to be (since I never touch bread dough before).

I was actually a little relieve by now since it didn’t turn out to be a disaster. I washed the bowl and greased it with a bit of oil. In goes the dough and I have to let it sit there for two hours.

Next I prepared the topping part. I almost ran out of flour since I added so much more into the dough than the 1 and 3/4 cups stated in the recipe. I toned down the sugar amount from 10 tablespoons to 8 since I don’t want it to be too sweet. This time, I remember to warm the butter a bit in the microwave first.

The topping turns out to be fairly easy except one thing – lemon peel. When I read the recipe before going out to buy the ingredients, I saw ‘1/2 lemon peel’. Unsure of what it is, I just assume it’s as literal as it sounds. As I prepare this topping, I cut the lemon in half and grated some of the peel off. I had doubts of what I was doing but added them into the mix anyways. If anything, it’ll just taste weird. It won’t kill me.

Two hours later, the dough had expanded quite a bit. I was a bit worry that it’ll be to much. I’ll end up eating bread for the next few meals. >.<

I was told to ‘punch’ it from the recipe. And I did.

The dough deflated like a ball with a hole. I kneed again for 10 minutes or so. Somehow this 10 minutes of kneeding felt a lot more tiring than the last. Phew.. After the all that, there was ‘less’ dough – a more reasonable amount. It’s finally ready to be made into bread.

I took small chunks of the dough and roll them into a ball shape. I was unsure of how much dough I needed for each bun. I don’t know if they expand or not. And if they do, by how much. Then I was afraid that I placed them too close to each other. First time baking bread is rather stressful.

After letting the dough sit for a bit, I added the topping on it. This was really tricky. Honestly, I didn’t know how to approach it at first. I just scope some with my hand and placed it on but the topping sticks to my hands more than the bun. =/ So with much effort, I manage to get them onto the dough. Again, I didn’t how much was enough. This was just an guess.

Baking at 375F, the topping has began to melt. For the longest time, it was in the liquidy form and I was worried that I’ve done something wrong. Soon, I can smell the sweetness of the bread coming from the oven.

Seeing that the topping had turn slightly brown, I took the tray out of the oven. They don’t look exactly like the melon buns from the bakery but I think they turn out decently. Another thing I had trouble with was creating the lines on the topping. Typical melon buns have a pattern on the top. I originally added the pattern before putting them into the oven but they all disappear when it came out.

The next batch was baked in the toaster oven. I tried adding lines when the topping wasn’t crispy yet but it was still very difficult. I’ve concluded that I was definitely doing it improperly and there’s another way to add the pattern.

Third and final batch. I still haven’t master how to put on the topping properly. Nor have I figure out how to shape the dough so that it’ll come out looking like a typical bun. I think the middle top one here looks the best out of all of them.

I ended up wrapping this batch with plastic wrap. It was suggested in the recipe as a way to keep the topping mushy instead of crisp. Frankly, I like the mushy topping more. It’s more natural to me.

I ended with some topping left over and baked them into cookies. For the topping, I was suppose to add in melon essence but I couldn’t find any. I ended up adding some vanilla extract. Technically, the name melon bun came from how it looked and traditionally did not include any melon flavouring.

I ate 2 of the buns. While the bread was decent, I think the topping need some more work. It taste fine but quite different than the melon buns I’ve eaten. Flavour wise, it had a strong lemon taste to it. I think I can lower the amount of lemon peel next time. Bupo also mention that Starbucks sells melon extract so we can try using that next time. Also, I want to figure out how to add the pattern on the topping.

Overall, not bad for a first attempt. :)

Posted in Real Life
Tagged as baking, melon pan