These melon pan were the brainchild of me baking sourdough, wanting to find ways to use up said sourdough, and experimenting with a hybrid between pate choux and milk bread. I found that mixing pate choux dough into a bread dough is similar to a tangzhong(cooked flour mixture), and results in a tender, soft crumb. Since I was playing around with bread of that nature, I figured one fun take on it would be melon pan. But not just any melon pan, but ice cream-stuffed melon pan, with the ice cream being melon soda flavored! I figured, why not triple down on the melon theme, with melon shaped bread with melon soda gelee cube-studded vanilla ice cream? The end result was a really aesthetically pleasing ice cream sandwich, and I was happy with how melon-y the flavor of the ice cream was! It took a few tries with the ice cream just to get that melon soda flavor in there(heating up a soda obviously kills the carbonation, so I had to test different ways to ensure my gelee still had a carbonated feeling), but it really does taste like a glass of melon cream soda(one of my personal favorite things to drink whenever I am in Japan).

For this recipe, it is extremely technical. The buns are made from that aforementioned sourdough-pate choux bread dough, which means that you need to have an active sourdough starter – make sure your starter is bubbly is has been fed for at least 5 days before attempting this recipe. You will also need to control the dough’s temperature closely, since if the pate choux mixture is too warm when you add it to the bread dough, it may kill the starter and you will end up with a dense, gummy bread instead. With the exterior of the breads, we have a sugar dough layer, made similarly to a shortbread dough, but a bit softer. Making sure that the dough does not get too warm is key to ensure that you can roll, shape, and enrobe the breads with the sugar layer. And that’s just the melon pan itself! For the ice cream, we have a vanilla ice cream with a melon soda gelee. The gelee needs to be made first, since you need to freeze it solid before folding it into the ice cream. The gelee itself is made from taking a portion of melon soda, melting agar and salt into that, then adding that syrup to more melon soda(to not ruin the carbonation), and freezing that into cubes. The ice cream base is actually a super easy ice cream base to make overall(it uses cornstarch to thicken it instead of egg yolks, so scrambling this is unlikely). Allow your ice cream base to cool down to room temperature before churning it in an ice cream maker, then folding into that the melon soda gelee pieces to finish.

Makes 12 sandwiches:
For the pate choux batter:
1/2 cup milk
a pinch of salt
4 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
.2oz canola oil

In a pot, heat up the flour, salt, and butter, bringing everything to a boil. Once the butter is fully melted, add in the flour and stir everything on medium heat until everything mixes into a glossy ball of dough. Take the pot off heat and stir in the egg and canola oil.

For the dough:
Pate choux batter
2 cups all-purpose flour
2oz sourdough starter
2oz whole milk

In a bowl, mix together your pate choux with the flour, starter, and milk until a dough forms. Allow the dough to rest at room temperature for 2 hours before allowing the dough to sit in the refrigerator for another 4 hours. Divide the dough into 8 even pieces.

For the sugar layer:
1 stick unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

In a bowl, cream your butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt together. Mix into that the egg, then fold into that the flour to form your dough. Allow the dough to refrigerate for 10 minutes before dividing into 8 pieces. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to roughly 1/8 inch-thickness and wrap the layer around the milk bread dough pieces.

Allow the milk bread to proof at room temperature for 1 hour. Then bake at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes. Allow the baked melon pan to cool before cutting in half horizontally.

For the melon soda gelee:
6.75oz melon soda, in 5 parts
2 tbsp agar agar
a pinch of salt

In a pan, heat up 1 part pf the melon soda with the agar and salt until the solids are fully dissolved into the liquid. Take the pan off heat and pour the contents into a bowl, mixing into that the rest of the soda to cool it down faster. Freeze the liquid until it firms up and dice into 1/8-inch cubes. Keep the cubes frozen solid for folding into the ice cream.

For the ice cream:
8oz heavy cream
6oz whole milk, in two parts
1oz cornstarch
1 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla bean paste

In a pot, heat up the heavy cream, one part of the whole milk, the cornstarch, sugar, salt, and vanilla, whisking everything on medium-high heat until it all comes to a boil. Take the thickened milk mixture off heat and whisk in the remaining milk to both thin out the ice cream base and to cool it down. Chill the ice cream base before churning in an ice cream maker for 15 minutes. Then fold into that the still-frozen melon soda cubes, and freeze the ice cream for 1 hour before attempting to scoop.