Turtle Melonpan by Angel Wan

Turtle Melonpan

Ingredients (Makes about 11 Melonpan) 

Recipe adapted from Cooking With Dog with slight modification

(Bread dough) Ingredients

Bread flour  300g

Plain flour  120g

Milk powder  15g

Instant dry yeast 10g

sugar  80g

salt  1/2tsp

Egg  1

Warm water 200ml 

Butter 50g 

Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl except butter. Using a dough hook with mixer on low beat till dough form. Add in butter and beat till smooth dough form for about 6 -8 mins. (Can be done using breadmaker if you have.) Cover the dough and let it proof for an hour or till double in volume. 

(Cookie dough) Ingredients

Butter 50g (soften)

Sugar 70g

Egg 1 

Cake flour 150g

Baking powder 1/2 tsp

Matcha powder 10g

Beat soften butter with sugar using a hand whisk till light and creamy. Add in beaten egg little by liitle till well combine.  Sift in the rest of the flour ingredients and mix till dough form using a rubber scraper. Wrap with clingwrap and form into a cylinder shape. Refrigerate till needed.  

Method

1. Weigh proof dough at 50g each. (For turtle melonpan, weigh for abt 11 dough first as you need the left over dough for the body parts.) Cover and let it rest for another 15 mins.

2. While that happening, remove cookie dough from the fridge. On a flour working surface, roll them into a long cylinder shape. Cut and weigh them at about 30g each and roll them into a ball.

3. Using two clingwrap or plastic bag. Place the dough in between the plastic. Press and flatten it into a circle shape for about 3.5" diameter. Place them on a lightly flour baking dish or pan cover with cling and return back to the fridge till needed. (What i do is i stack them up using clingwrap in between each cookie dough)

4. Reshape the rest dough into a round ball. If you like you can wrap in your fav fillings.(I filled mine with butter) Place a piece of cookie dough on top of the bread dough wrap over it. (Refer to the video link for better understanding)

5. Coat with sugar and score them with criss-cross pattern using a scraper or knife. 

6. Weigh the turtle head, legs and tail at 6g, 3g, 2g respectively.

7. Shape and assemble them on greaseproof paper. Place the bread dough from steps 5 on top of the body parts, make sure they are attach to the heads, legs and tail so that they will stick togther during the last proof. (Refer to image for my sketch on how to shape the body parts)

 8. Let them rise for an hour or till double in size. 

9. Bake in preheated-oven at 180 degree for about 12 - 14mins. (Depends on individual oven temperature.)

**Note:

- For traditonal Japanese Melonpan, they doesn't has fillings in it.  But i like to fill my melonpan with butter. You can fill with your favourite fillings too but preferably sweet kinds, like azuki or salted custard(liu sha)if you have the recipe. i think it will taste good too. 

-Use melted chocolate to decorate details of turtle eyes or you can use mini choco chips before sending them into the oven.

Video link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z0e-GKJA10