BA's October Bake Club recipe is salt bread with a secret butter core
Bon Appétit's Bake Club has named its October pick, and it's the kind of recipe that makes a plain dinner roll feel like a trick. Salt bread — known as shio pan in Japan and sogeum-ppang in Korea — is a soft, milk-bread-adjacent bun that hides a nub of salted butter inside the dough before baking.
Deputy food editor Hana Asbrink describes it as "a Parker House roll having a tryst with Asian-style milk bread and a classic French croissant." The little pat of butter melts in the oven and pools on the baking sheet, effectively frying the bottom crust into a crisp, savory shell you'd normally only find in a patisserie.
"I like to tear it in half to revel in the buttery, hollow center, then unravel each flaky layer, just like a croissant."
The Bake Club runs like a book club, but for baking. Each month senior editors Jesse Szewczyk and Shilpa Uskokovic (the Test Kitchen's resident bakers) drop a brand-new, meticulously tested recipe, and members bake along, share photos with the hashtag #BABakeClub, and ask questions in the recipe notes.
How to join
There's no fee and no sign-up wall. Save the recipe, bake it, post your results on Instagram, and send feedback through the Epicurious app. Baking questions can also go to bakeclub@bonappetit.com for a shot at appearing on the Bake Club podcast, which goes live at the start of each month.
September's pick was apple pie fritters, and August brought an audacious plum cheesecake karpatka with homemade jam. But Asbrink is confident this month's savory-but-buttery roll is the best one yet — and the "rightfully viral" reputation of shio pan suggests home bakers will agree.
