The Magical Ingredients for a Wholesome Life From the Heart of my Home: Matcha and Strawberry Cream Melonpan

This matcha and strawberry cream melonpan is the ultimate soft bun colored with matcha and flavored with a filled strawberry cream and a crunchy strawberry cookie top. This is a eggless bun with cookie top. This resembles the pineapple or melon bun aka melonpan. Strawberry and matcha are perfect pairs and this melonpan with these two stars is a double hit in flavors and texture!

The soft, fluffy bun is lika a cloud and the strawberry cream cheese filling is divine. The crunchy cookie top is amazing in every bite. This is one bun that will brighten you up at the start of the dough. I can guarantee that you'll feel like in heaven with every bite of this delicious bun!

This bread dough uses tangzhong. Tangzhong is a kind of a gel made with flour, milk, and water, cooked on stove to get the gel consistency. Tangzhong is a key to get soft breads with a better shelf-life. They tend to be softer longer. Tangzhong makes better rolls like in this Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls! It gives amazing, light, and beautiful texture to the bread.

This bread is colored with matcha. If you want a stronger green color, increase matcha by another tablespoon.
The color of the bread depends on the matcha powder used. Matcha is a finely ground specially grown green tea leaves in east Asia. It is widely popular for its benefits. Adding to baked goods is an amazing idea. Breads like this Matcha Orange Loaf is an amazing and delicious that you'd love to bake often!

The strawberry filling and the cookie top too are made with fresh homemade strawberry preserves. Store-bought preserves can also be used. Adding freeze dried powdered strawberries helps to get good color in cookie dough, but the color will fade after baking. If you want more color after baking add a couple of drops of food color tothe cookie dough (not used in this recipe).

Like I said earlier, this bread is completely naturally colored. No extra added food colors of any sort! There are many ways to make naturally colored breads. Like this Spiced Up Potato, Turmeric, and Oat Bread where the added turmeric gives the classic yellow color. Carrots and pumpkins add orange color to this Multigrain Carrot Rolls and Pumpkin Shaped Pumpkin Rolls, respectively

It is advisable to store the leftovers in fridge as it has cream cheese. The cookie top might loose the crispness in fridge. Just pop them in the over and warm for a few minutes. This will warm the bread and crisp the softened cookie top. Serve with warm milk, tea, or coffee for a perfect breakfast. This will be gone in a flash before even thinking to store in fridge. They will snacked on too! Beware the entire family will hog on to this bread.

Happy New Year #BreadBakers! We are starting this year’s events with a colorful beginning. Our theme for this month is “Naturally Colored Breads” and I am hosting this event. #BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.

This naturally colored bread is my recipe for the #BreadBakers event as well as to Happiness is Homemade, What's For Dinner, and Sundays on Silverado.

Update: This was featured on What's For Dinner 350! Thanks, Helen!

Ingredients

Makes 9 buns

Bread flour - 2.5 cups

Matcha - 1.5 tbsp

Milk - 3/4 cups

Salt - 1/2 tsp

Sugar - 2 tbsp

Yeast - 1.5tsp

Butter - 4 tbsp, melted

Aquafaba - 3 tbsp

Milk powder - 3 tbsp

For Tangzhong

Milk - 1/6 cups

Water - 1/6 cup

Flour 5 tsp

For Cream Cheese Strawberry Filling

Cream cheese - 8 oz, room temperature

Strawberry - 2.5 tbsp

For cookie dough

Butter - 5tbsp

Powdered sugar - 1/3 cup

Condensed milk - 1 tbsp

Flour - 1 cup

Strawberry preseve - 2 tbsp

Freeze dried strawberry powder - 1 tbsp (optional)

Method

Add the ingredients listed under "For Tangzhong" to a sauce pan. Whisk to make it lump free. Cook on a low-medium flame and in 2-3 minutes, the mixture will form into tangzhong. Keep stirring continuously to get a homogeneous mixture.

Add the tangzhong, activated yeast, melted butter, matcha, flour, salt, aquafaba, and milk powder into the bread machine. Set it in dough cycle. The dough can be kneaded by hand too.

When the dough proves, make the cream cheese filling by mixing cream cheese and strawberry preserve. Keep it in fridge until use.

Make the cookie dough with the ingredients listed under "cookie dough". Roll into a log and refrigerate.

The dough will be doubled in an hour.

Knead and divide the dough to nine equal portions.

Roll each portion into a 5 or 6-in circle. Add about one to one and quarter tablespoons of cream cheese mixture. Gather the ends and shape into a ball.