New melon pan crossover looks set to be a hit with customers.

7-Eleven has been shaking up the convenience store scene in Japan recently, overhauling sandwiches with pink bread, rolling out tea-brewing machines, and adding Korean cheese balls to its hot food lineup. Now, the chain is continuing its run of exciting new creations with another innovation: chocolate cookies that taste like freshly baked melon bread.

Produced for the chain’s “Seven Cafe Bakery” line, which features products baked in dedicated ovens within stores, the product is said to be a new kind of cookie that combines melon pan crust, made with the same cookie dough ingredients used in 7-Eleven’s popular melon bread, with chocolate cookies.

The top crust of a melon bread, or “melon pan” to use its Japanese name, is often the best part, as its crunchy surface is where most of the sweet and sugary melon flavour resides. It’s a genius move by 7-Eleven to take the crust and essentially stuff it with chocolate, melding two sweet elements that don’t usually come together for a whole new cookie experience.

▼ The top of the cookie has the same distinctive cross-hatching as a melon pan.

The sugar on the surface becomes slightly caramelised during the in-store baking process, creating a golden-brown hue. Being freshly baked, the cookie is said to be crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside, so you can enjoy a delightful contrast in texture.

▼ If you prefer actual melon bread, you can get that freshly baked at Seven Cafe Bakery stores too.

The melon bread pictured above, which retails for 161 yen (US$1), has been a popular item since it first debuted two years ago, so the cookie looks set to be a hit with customers. Priced at 241 yen, it will be available at 7-Eleven stores nationwide from 7 July, appearing alongside another hit item, the freshly baked Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Source, images: Press release
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