{{Short description|Japanese sweet bread}} {{More citations needed|date=December 2012}} {{Expand Japanese|topic=cult|メロンパン|date=November 2025}} {{Infobox food | name = Melonpan | image = Melonpan on the plastic bag.jpg | image_size = 300 | caption = Melonpan, with characteristic crisscross pattern | alternate_name = {{Plain list| * Melon pan * Melon bun * Melon bread }} | country = Japan | type = Sweet bun | region = East Asia | creator = | course = | served = | main_ingredient = {{Plain list| * Dough * Cookie dough }} | variations = | calories = | other = | no_recipes = true }}
{{nihongo|'''Melonpan'''|メロンパン|meronpan}}, also called '''melon bun''' or '''melon bread''', is a Japanese sweetbun covered in a layer of crispy cookie dough. The texture resembles that of a melon, such as a cantaloupe. It is not traditionally melon-flavored.<ref>Kazuko, Emi: Japanese Food and Cooking</ref>
Melonpan and pineapple bun from Hong Kong are very similar. By comparison, the Japanese style is lighter in weight and taste, slightly drier, and has a firmer outer layer (including top cookie crust) that resists flaking, unlike its Hong Kong counterpart, whose top cookie crust tends to flake easily. The Hong Kong version is also moister and is generally soft on the outside and inside, with a stronger butter flavor.
== Etymology == ''Melonpan'' consists of two loanwords: the word ''melon'' and the Portuguese word ''pão'', meaning "bread".<ref name="Portuguese">See [https://web.archive.org/web/20080116040319/http://dictionary.www.infoseek.co.jp/?spa=&sc=1&se=on&lp=0&gr=ml&qt=%A4%D1%A4%F3&sm=1&sv=2T Infoseek Japanese-English dictionary for pan/パン]</ref> It is called that because the grid or net-like pattern of the crispy surface looks like the rind of some melons.
== History == [[File:ジャンボめろんぱん 2014 (16137071829).jpg|thumb|Jumbo melonpan for sale in Asakusa]] There are several competing theories about melonpan's origin. * One theory is that after World War I, Okura Kihachiro brought an Armenian baker, Hovhannes Ghevenian, also known as Ivan Sagoyan, to Tokyo. Sagoyan worked at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and invented the bread following Russian, French, and Viennese baking techniques. However, if Sagoyan was indeed the inventor, he did not refer to the bread as "melonpan".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bakhchinyan |first1=Artsvi |title=The Armenian Who Invented the Japanese Sweet Bun |url=https://mirrorspectator.com/2019/10/03/the-armenian-who-invented-the-japanese-sweet-bun/ |website=The Armenian Mirror-Spectator |access-date=10 June 2021 |date=3 October 2019}}</ref><ref>"Hong Kong's Pineapple Bun | Shall we Lotte | Lover of Your Taste Buds - Lotte" (Japanese). Lotte. https://www.lotte.co/entertainment/shallwelotte/story/stamp/buttered-pineapple-bun/{{Dead link|date=January 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. Accessed on April 19, 2023.</ref> * Alternatively, the bread (specifically its shape and method of production) invented by the bakery owner Kikujiro Mitsugawa in 1930 could have been melonpan. Records from the time describe covering the bread dough with cake dough and adding flavors like coffee or banana, albeit with no mention of the bread's name.<ref>Kazuko Higashishima, ''The Truth about Melonpan''. Kodansha (Kindle), 2007. ASIN B08MF2LH4C.</ref> * Another theory states that the round bread with biscuit dough on top called "Sunrise" sold by Kinseido's Obama branch in Kobe in the 1930s was the first melonpan in Japan. * Other theories point to origins in the Mexican pastry ''conchas'' and the German pastry ''Streuselkuchen'', which were introduced to Japan from the United States following World War II.<ref>Kazuko Higashishima, ''The Truth about Melonpan''. Kodansha (Kindle), 2007. ASIN B08MF2LH4C.</ref>
==Variations== Many variations of melonpan exist. Though not originally melon-flavored, it has become popular for manufacturers to actually add melon flavoring to melonpan.
They can be baked with caramel or chocolate, and filled or covered with cream or custard. Some contain chocolate chips between the cookie and bread layer. In the case of such variations, the name may drop the word "melon", instead replacing it with the name of the contents (such as "maple pan" for a maple syrup flavored bread) or may keep it despite the lack of melon flavor (such as "chocolate melon pan").
In parts of the Kansai, 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".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://weekend.nikkei.co.jp/kiko/map/sunrise/ |title='Melon Pan'/'Sunrise' Dialect Survey Map from Nikkei |access-date=2007-04-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012215202/http://weekend.nikkei.co.jp/kiko/map/sunrise/ |archive-date=2007-10-12 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<gallery widths="150px" heights="150px" mode="packed"> Melon pan & iced coffee.jpg|Regular Melonpan.jpg|Regular Chocochips melonpan.jpg|With chocolate chips メロンパンアイス 大阪 2016 (31278900614).jpg|With cream Melon bread and green tea melon bread.jpg|Regular and green tea flavor Melonpan Kure.JPG 親亀 子亀 (8489689014).jpg 美容と健康に メロンパン (2823488097).jpg </gallery>
==See also== {{portal|Food}} * Concha * Pineapple bun * Soboro-ppang * List of buns
==References== <references/>
==External links== * [http://www.lerman.biz/asagao/melonpan.html Melon Pan Recipe]
{{Japanese food and drink|state=autocollapse}} {{Japanese bread}} {{Bread}}
Category:Buns Category:Japanese breads Category:Japanese desserts and sweets Category:Sweet breads Category:Yeast breads