Red Bean Honey Butter Toast Recipe

This Japanese-style red bean honey butter toast recipe is essentially a buttery, crisp and rich honey toast sandwich.

I kept seeing videos on YouTube of Sakimoto Bakery in Namba, Japan making honey toast by straight up dunking thick slices of bread in melted butter and honey, and I decided that I needed some of that good stuff. Particularly, Sakimoto Bakery's honey butter toast sandwiched with sweet red bean paste and butter.

Honey toast, also sometimes known as brick toast or Shibuya toast, originated in Shibuya, Japan. It's a simple and delicious dessert/snack that's made with fluffy, soft shokupan (Japanese milk bread), butter and sugar, and it's baked to form a crunchy caramelised coating.

The honey is either added to the sugar coating before baking, or drizzled on after. And honey toast can either be eaten plain, or hollowed out and filled with various sweet toppings like ice cream, fruit and chocolate.

There are a few different ways of making honey butter toast – for example, mixing softened butter with sugar and then spreading it on bread before baking it and then drizzling with honey. This is the method that I used for my Kinder Bueno honey toast recipe.

But there's just something so naughty about dipping fluffy bread straight into a bath of melted butter and honey, it was impossible for me not to try.

I used my best guest to decide on the butter-to-honey ratio for the dipping part, and I'm really happy with the result. I also opted to cut the crusts off my bread to let it soak up even more of the honey butter mixture. And, as before, I used my own homemade shokupan recipe for these honey butter toast sandwiches, but store-bought is fine.

You can also watch me make this on my YouTube channel, Tashcakes;

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes two red bean honey butter toast sandwiches.)

Ingredients:

1 very thick (about 2–3" thick) slice of shokupan bread
50g unsalted butter
45g runny honey
50g caster sugar

To Serve:

Sweet red bean paste
Sliced (cold) unsalted butter

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a baking sheet with kitchen foil or a silicone baking sheet.

2. Cut the crusts off your slice of shokupan (being careful not to slice off too much), and discard the crusts. Slice the bread in half so you have two rectangular 'bricks'.

3. In a small saucepan, gently heat the butter and honey together until melted, and stir to combine. Take off the heat, 

4. Pour the sugar evenly on a medium to large plate.

5. Dip the bread bricks in your honey butter mixture, generously coating every side.

6. Now roll both bricks in your sugar and salt mixture, and place them onto your prepared baking sheet.

7. Bake for about 10–15 minutes, or until the honey toast is golden brown and glossy, and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

8. Slice both honey butter toasts lengthways, but not all the way through, and fill with sweet red bean paste and a couple of slices of cold unsalted butter.

Enjoy, and have fun.