Chenergy Consulting

Roman Reign

 

Blogs and Awards (click icon)

Home
Up
About Us
Austin Dog Friendly
Austin Drive Clean
The Posse - Our Dogs
Videos
Working Events and Info
Handcrafted Equipment
Photo Gallery I
Photo Gallery II
Articles and Links
Surviving Parvovirus
Guide to Researching Dog Show Judges
Dangers of Fake Service Dogs
How to make a bloat kit
Transport a dog in cabin
Compound Dog Supplements and Medications at home

Texas Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs Facebook

 

Keep Austin Dog Friendly is an educational and informational not for profit service. Your contribution offsets the costs of hosting, smart phone app development, promotional materials, and the costs of sponsoring events. Thank you so much in Keeping Austin Dog Friendly. Donations are not tax deductible.

Download the Keep Austin Dog Friendly iPhone/Ipad App!

Follow us on Twitter!

(click on icon to follow)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Email: Jennie at Roman Reign dot com.

 

Google Voice:

512-981-7627

 

 

 

 

Step aside, David Ansel. I had some 10,000,000x better than a deep fried croissant in the shape of a donut. Not only is this the best pastry I've ever put in my mouth, I improved on it. I bring to you Japanese Melonpan, three ways.

 

1. Snow Queen - a ultra delicate super sugar shell over a super soft buttery Danish.

2. The Regular - a cookie crust over a super soft buttery Danish.

3. The Cookstry or a Dankie- cookie dough wrapped in layers of super soft buttery Danish and encased in a cookie shell. This is my improvement n the Regular.

 

Before we jump into the three way recipe of the melonpan and this new thing I'm calling a cookstry or a dankie, the inspiration was the melonpan at Donutes in Taichung, Taiwan. This plain looking pastry (below) is one of the best bakery items I have ever had. The only thing that can compare is the bread at Eleven Madison Park in New York City, and it is not even in the same category of breads.

 

The traditional melonpan is a sweet bread covered with a cookie crust. It is called melonpan because the top cracks or hatchmarks make it appear like a cantaloupe melon. Here's some recipes, and here, and here, and even some shaped like an adorable turtle. What I had was nothing like a sweet bread or any other recipe that I saw online. What I had was an incredibly buttery and soft Danish covered with a crunchy cookie crust. So I went to the drawing board by experimenting with laminated doughs to get what I wanted. This dough is not a traditional Danish or croissant dough. It is also not puffy pastry. It is a super soft laminated dough that was quite difficult to keep together, but the results were fantastic. If you try a different type of laminated dough, I can't be responsible for the results.

 

This boring looking thing will blow your mind.

 

As I was developing this recipe, I experimented with a number of crusts. In this post, I'll detail two different crusts and three different recipes - hence the three ways. Pictured below from front to back:

 

1. Snow Queen - a ultra delicate super sugar shell over the buttery Danish.

2. The Regular - a cookie crust over a super soft Danish.

3. The Cookstry or a Dankie- cookie dough wrapped in layers of buttery Danish and encased in a cookie shell.

 

 

For all three, they share the same inner dough. Do note that this entire recipe(s) takes at least 24 hours from start to finish. I recommend doing it in parts. The laminating steps and proofing steps don't actually take that long, but you need to remember to do them! Also, the dough recipe is super, super active and soft. This is so that the ending product is super soft, light and airy.

 

Dough ingredients:

  • 2 cups flour 
  • One egg 
  • 3 teaspoons yeast 
  • 2 big pinches salt 
  • 3/4 cup powdered sugar 
  • 3 oz water 
  • 3 oz milk 
  • 4 oz butter (softened)
  • 16 oz butter for laminating
  • Any additional flavorings like vanilla or almond extract could go in here. You could actually add butter flavoring here as well.

Cookie Crust:  Cream together butter and sugar. Mix butter and sugar with dry ingredients. Refrigerate until use.

  • 8oz butter 

    1 cup powdered sugar 

  • 3/4 cup flour 

  • 2 pinches salt 

  • 1 tsp baking soda

  • 1 tsp vanilla  

Sugar Crust: Cream butter and sugar together. Refrigerate until use.

  • 8 oz butter 

  • 2 cups powdered sugar 

Dough Instructions:

 

1. Heat the water until it is between 105- 115 degrees and add the yeast. While the yeast is blooming, combine the flour, powdered sugar, egg, and butter in a bowl. After 3-5 minutes, the yeast should be super excited.  Add the happy yeast to the dry ingredients and mix. It is easier to do this with a stand mixer, but doing this by hand would be okay as well. Add in the milk to the party just before the dough starts to come together. And the add in the salt. You can skip the kneading process if you like. I like to flour the outside of the dough ball, return it the mixing bowl, cover with saran wrap, and cover with a damp cloth. Let the dough rise for several hours.

2. While the dough is doing its thing, sandwich the 16 oz of butter between two sheets of wax paper. It is easier if you slice the butter into long thing pieces and lay them on the wax paper. Flatten the butter until it is about 14 inches by 10 inches and fairly evenly distributed. If the butter is already soft, you can smooth it out with your hands to create a flat sheet of butter. If it is hard, you might give it a few minutes to become pliable. Use a rolling pin to make the job easier. Please not that this does not have to be perfect in shape, size, or thickness. You're just laminating it. Return the butter to the fridge until it is time to laminate.

3. After 3-4 hours, punch the dough down to rid it of air. Turn it out on a floured surface and knead just a few times. Wrap it up tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for several hours. Keep in mind that this is a feisty dough. It has plenty of sugar to eat (also the dough is slightly sweet), and it can seem to have a mind of its own. Don't be surprised if you check on it, and it is busting through the plastic wrap. If that happens, you might need to punch it a few times, rewrap it, and return it to the fridge.

4. After the dough has sufficiently chilled (at least 4 -6 hours), turn it out onto a floured surface. Punch it a few times if it is still poofy. Start rolling the dough out in a shape that somewhat resembles the flattened butter. Tip: make the edges of the dough thinner than the center. You'll be overlapping layers anyways. Once you have a shape that is roughly 18 inches x 12 inches, lay the flattened butter on top and wrap that butter like a Christmas present.

5. Start laminating the dough by using your rolling pin to seal all the edges you just pulled together. Roll the dough out some more. The butter inside will soon become pliable and move with the dough. Once you have rolled the dough out a bit, fold it into thirds. The recipe isn't really particular about how you fold it as the inner layers will become a canenverous maze of fluffiness. Once folded, roll again, and fold into thirds again. Then wrap the dough and place it back in the fridge for several hours.

6. Laminate the dough again by removing it from the fridge, and giving it a few good wacks with the rolling pin. I keep doing the laminating process as much as the dough can take it. Once the dough warms up it will become very soft and difficult to laminate. Use flour liberally here to keep the dough from sticking. If you happen to rip a layer of dough to expose butter, you can repair it with some flour. I have experienced that the counter is a sticky strip of butter. I scrap up the butter, reapply it to the dough, and then give it another generous layering of flour. When I found into thirds, I fold so that the sticky side is inside. After 3-5 laminations, the dough will need to go back in the fridge or else it will become too soft and lose shape. Also, you might find large chunks of butter in your dough, and that is perfectly fine. In my experience, the more chunks of butter, the better the results.

7. About an hour or so before you intend on baking the little delightful treats, take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out lightly. It doesn't need to be thin. Even a half inch in thickness would be fine. While you can make any shape of pastry you like (croissants, kolaches, or triangles), the traditional shape of melonpans are round domes. To make the classic circular shape, cut the dough into strips about 3/4 to 1 inch wide. Flatten them lightly with a rolling pin. The dough is pretty delicate so take great care not to flatten the layers.
 

8. To create the dough balls, you'll start fold and rolling these strips from one end to the next. If you roll them up neat in pretty, you'll get spiral shape layers. By folding and rolling asymmetrically, you'll get fluffy, cavernous layers instead (more like what I had at Donutes). Folding instructions for the Regular and the Snow Queen are the same as described above. For the Costry, you'll add a few 1/ 2 teaspoons of cookie dough every 2-4 inches on the strip of dough you are going to use. Fold and roll encasing those little nuggets of cold cookie dough as you go. For all three styles, once you have rolled up the little balls. Lightly dust them with flour and give them a gentle squeeze. You want to pinch shut the edges of the dough balls, but you don't want to squish anything flat. Set aside on parchment paper to proof. *Note: you can make these dough balls smaller or lager depending on how you feel. I've made some the size of golf balls and some the size of grapefruit.

9. Adding the top crust is the last step as the dough balls proof. For the Snow Queen (sugar crusted), put a small scoop (1/2 to 1 tablespoon) of the cold butter and sugar mixture on top of the dough ball. Flatten the dough ball a bit to help the butter sugar stay on top. For the Regular and the Costry, take 2 tablespoons or so of the cookie dough. Roll it out (or just use your hands) to shape it into a disc about 1/4 to 1/2 in thick and large enough in area to cover the top and sides of your dough ball. You don't have to be exact here and you don't have to cover the entire dough ball. The cookie crust will naturally crack, and gravity will take effect so make sure you have more of the cookie dough on top rather than the sides.

10. Allow the dough balls to proof for 30 mins to an hour on parchment paper. By that time, they should be super soft to the touch and fluffy again. Bake at 375 for approximately 12- 25 minutes depending on the size of your dough balls. I baked the small ones for right at 12 minutes, and larger ones took up to 25 minutes. If your cookie crust starts to brown before the insides are done, lower the temperature to 325 or 350 to prevent the cookie from burning.

11. Once they are golden brown on the outside, remove from often and eat them as soon as possible. The Snow Queens will have a crust of sugar on top that may stay white to light golden. These are best when warm. Serve with coffee and a hug.

Tips:

The dough might rise as you are rolling it out. That's totally fine. It will result in a super soft Danish.

The dough might tear as you are laminating it. I would just patch it up with a little flour.

There are big chunks of butter in the dough. That's a good thing. Butter is a good thing. A very good thing.

You can make whatever shape you like. How about a giraffe? Seriously, make any shape you want. Just keep in mind that these are layers of dough. Don't smoosh them.

See below for photo guidance.

 

The dough has already been punched like the naughty dough that it is. I'm starting to roll it out for the first iteration of laminating. You can see the butter to the side still wrapped in wax paper.

 

My butter wasn't perfectly flat as I didn't have a perfectly flat place for it in the fridge. It also isn't perfectly rectangular. Don't worry about that. This is baking, not brain surgery.

 

It looks like I'm ninja chopping the butter. I was holding it down as I pulled the wax paper off.

 

Now I'm folding over the edges of the dough. We're going to wrap this baby up.

 

Fold that butter baby in.

 

Next roll over those seams to close it up. Try to get the air bubbles out.

 

Once you've rolled it out into a rectangular shape, fold it into thirds. Then roll it out again, gently. And fold again, and roll. Do remember to wrap the dough and put it in the fridge between laminating sessions. The dough is soft already, and it can easily fall apart on you if you don't take the time to refrigerate.

 

If it does happen to get too soft and tear, patch it up with some flour and fold that section to the inside when you laminate. Be liberal with the flour. That will help keep the dough from sticking to the table and the butter from running away.

 

Here are the cut strips for the buns.

 

Using a rolling, flatten the out just a bit. Be super careful with the layers you just spent 24 hours creating.

 

I like to fold and roll to give it interesting cavernous layers inside. You could do a spiral too.

 

And roll and fold. And roll and fold.

 

It doesn't need to be perfect. It only needs to be tasty.

 

And then you wind up with this little beauty. Note that this is a pretty tiny one.

 

This one is a bit larger. I'm carefully sealing up the seams. Gently. Gently.

 

There it is closed up, but not smooshed.

 

Here's how you would roll up the coostry. I put small pieces of cold cookie dough on the strip and then roll them up!

 

This one will be odd shaped.

 

To make the cookie crust, take some cookie dough and flatten it into a disc larger than the dough balls. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be tasty.

 

I use a flat scraping tool to pick it up off the counter. It can be a wee bit delicate. If it is too crumbly, add more butter to get it stickier.

 

Here's a dough ball being wrapped in cookie dough.

 

Lightly shape it together.

 

Here's the three ways: The Snow Queen, The Regular, and the Cookie Monster.

 

And an upclose shot of the three.

 

Here's the final product of the Snow Queen. The sugar crust is amazingly light and flaky. I provides a nice sweet crunch on top of the the steaming, buttery bun.

 

Here's an upclose view of the regular (the regular and the cookie maddness) both look the same on the outside. The cookie crust is cracked and resemble a canteloupe melon.

 

Here's another view of a Snow Queen. You can see the insides of this one. 

 

Oh sweet baby! These carbs are worth a nice long run.

 

And here's the inside. You'll see the maze of layers, and crusty top.

Here's a close up view of the regular. Crunchy cookie on the outside. Buttery goodness inside.

 

]

Here's a view of the insides of the croqookie. Cookie wrapped in layers of buttery fluffy and covered by a crunchy cookie shell.

And here's another from a different batch. You can't get this text by taking a bite of a cookie and a croissant. It just isn't the same. fs