Sweet Japanese Bread Made by the Armenians

Sweet Japanese Bread Made by the Armenians

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We already have the opportunity to make and try the Japanese sweet bread “meron pan” made by an Armenian. The President of IROHA” Armenian-Japanese Educational and Cultural Exchange Center Ruzan Khojikyan has translated the recipe of “meron pan”, which is given below:

Ingredients (for 8 portions)
■Bulki dough
Flour… 200 g
Salt … 3 g
Sugar … 15g
Dry yeast … 3 g
Butter … 15 g
Half egg beaten in water. The total volume of these two should make 135 ml.
■Biscuit dough
Flour… 90 g
Almond flour … 30 g
Butter … 40 g
Sugar … 50 g
Half egg
(some milk, if necessary)

Directions

Biscuit dough (here: pancake. It’s like a gata khoriz (filling), it doesn’t serve as a filling but as a cover).
1. Add sugar to room temperature butter and mash until it gets white.
2. Divide whipped egg into 3 parts and add it in portions by mixing them thoroughly.
3. Add sifted flour, almond flour (if there is any) and with cutting motions mix them with a spoon or spatula. If you wish you can also add a little vanilla.
4. ※If the dough gets crushed with only egg, you can add some milk in order to have a soft homogeneous mass.
5. Wrap the given mass in a cling film and put it in the refrigerator.
Bulki dough

1. Pour flour into a bowl; add to it salt from one side and sugar and dry yeast from the other side. 2. From the yeast side add the egg and water mass and mix well with the help of a spoon or a spatula until there aren’t any flour balls.
3-6. Put the dough on the table and knead thoroughly.
7. After making smooth and homogeneous dough knead the room temperature butter into the dough.
8. When the butter is sufficiently dissolved in the dough and when the mass is again smooth and homogeneous, gently roll out the dough and if a membrane appears in the stretched area, the dough is ready.
9. Make dough balls, put them in a bowl, cover with cling film and let it rest until the size of dough balls is nearly doubled.
10. ※If it is possible you can let the dough rest in the electric baker.
11. After ripening, press the dough with your finger. If the hole on the dough doesn’t stretch back, then the dough has sufficiently risen.
12,13. Put the dough on the table and knead again (so that there’s no air in it), divide into 8 small balls, again cover with cling film and let it rest for 15 minutes.
14. Meanwhile the dough balls rest, take out the biscuit dough from the refrigerator, also divide into 8 parts and make dough balls.
15. 15 minutes past knead it again, take out the air and again make dough balls.

16. With a rolling-pin open the filling balls in a larger diameter than the dough balls are. It will be easier if you do it on a tracing paper.
17. From the top cover the dough ball with biscuit dough (so that the upper hemisphere is covered with the biscuit dough).
18. Cover with sugar.
19. Make network-shaped lines with a knife or spatula.
20-21. Put them on the tray, cover with cling film and let it ripen a little.
22. Bake in the oven at 190o for 14-15 minutes.
IT IS READY.
BON APPETIT ☺️

translated from Armenian into English by M.Vardanyan