Custard Rolls (クリームパン）

The other day, one of my English students brought me a few pieces of bakery bread that her mom had bought just before the lesson. After the lesson had finished, K begged and begged for a piece of bread that the student had brought, so I let him pick one out. Naturally, he picked out one of few sweet ones - that's my boy! He ate about 3/4 of the custard roll, クリームパン, in Japanese. When Y got home from work, he ate the last bit of the roll, said it was delicious, and then asked me to make some. Uhhh, sure!

I started off with the custard. I found this recipe and decided it would likely work as a bread filling. It starts with putting most of the sugar and all of the milk into a saucepan and letting it boil.

 

While that is on the way to boiling, you whisk up the eggs, remaining sugar, and cornstarch. Once it is all mixed and smooth, you add a bit of the milk mixutre to the egg mixture to temper it.

 



Once it has tempered, you add it back to the pan and then cook it until it thickens. Once thick, add butter and vanilla and stir until it is melted.

Then put the custard into a container and cover with plastic wrap, making sure to press the wrap onto the surface of the custard so that a skin doesn't form. Then refrigerate until it is cooled. This seems like it is a bit of a process, but it really is so quick and easy. If you are in the mood for some custard, this one could definitely do the trick!

While the custard was cooling, I got onto the bread. I used a "sweet bread" recipe from my breadmaker book. As I've mentioned before, I won't bother posting the recipe as all breadmakers are different. I imagine any type of sweetish, fluffy bread would work well.

Once the dough was ready, I cut it into eight pieces and got to filling!

I took each piece and kind of rolled it out with my hands. For the last few, I found it was way easier to put the bread on the table and flatten it out. Then I added some custard.

And finally I pinched the bottom shut to enclose the custard.

I put them pinched side down on the baking sheet.

Once they were all filled and pinched, they were ready for rising. I always underestimate how much bread rises. This is the "before rising" photo.

And this is the "after." They got massive. I was kind of bummed, as I do like my sweets to be on the small side, but it was a tad late to go fixing it. I probably could have divided the dough into 10 or maybe even 12 and it would have been fine. Next time, right?

When I pulled them out of the oven after baking, I was so sad to see that some of the custard had leaked out. I assumed that with all of the leakage, there would be no custard left inside. I had Y eat one, and as it turned out there was still plenty of custard on the inside. Apparently, I just put a bit too much in each roll.

I was also sad that the leaking custard looked gross. I cut it all off, however, and no one would be the wiser. We had them as snacks for when one of K's friends came over the following day. The boys didn't each much of the bread, but the other mom and I certainly did. Then I had one for breakfast the day after that too!! Maybe I'll have one of the last for tomorrow's breakfast as well...yum.