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 is called “sunrise”, and many residents of these regions call even the cross-hatched melon pan “sunrise”.

One theory is that it is called melonpan because the cookie crust topping that resembles a musk melon rind. Japan has a long history of luxury fruit, and melons are a huge part of that. These melons play a starring role at Shinjuku Takano (founded in 1885), one of Japan’s oldest and best-known fancy fruit emporiums. The theory is that by making bread that looked like these expensive fruits, bakers could make bread with a luxury image.

A second theory that melon pan is actually named after meringue and the Japanese for meringue (メレンゲ or merenge) became “meron” or “melon.”

Is melon pan similar to other sweet breads?

Melonpan and pineapple bun from Hong Kong are very similar. By comparison the Japanese style is lighter in weight and taste, slightly drier…