Strawberry-Mascarpone Maritozzi

You can find milk bread cream buns in almost every Asian bakery. They usually come round or elongated, slit across the top, and filled with piped swirls of whipped cream in varying flavors. This is one of those foods that, to nobody’s surprise, has traveled far and wide and made it as a staple bakery item in many different countries around the world. Italy has its own version called a maritozzo.

For my rendition, I use shokupan as the base and fill it with strawberry-rose confit, or