Melonpan — Japanese Sweet Bread

I was talking to a co-worker today who just came back from Japan. He said one of the best things he at there was melon bread.

I immediately googled this and found he was talking about melonpan.

A melonpan (メロンパン, meronpan) (also known as melon pan, melon bun or melon bread) is a type of sweet bun from Japan, made from a bread dough covered in a thin layer of crisp cookie dough.

Melonpan is not traditionally melon flavored, but adding the flavor has become popular. Variations exist, including some with a few chocolate chips between the cookie layer and the enriched dough layer, and non-melon versions flavored with caramel, maple syrup, chocolate, or other flavors, sometimes with syrup, whipped or flavored cream, or custard as a filling. In the case of such variations, the name may drop the word “melon” (“maple pan”) or may keep it despite the lack of melon flavor (“chocolate melon pan”).

I had to research it more. Here is what I found.

Where did the name melonpan come from?

Why it is called melonpan is slightly unclear. The name has a bilingual etymology, since melon is a loan word from English, while pan is from the Portuguese word for bread. In parts of the Kinki, Chūgoku, and Shikoku regions a variation with a radiating line pattern…