Bean Paste Flower Cake

Overview

I remember when I was a child, due to limited material conditions, I felt that puff pastry was very high-end, especially this kind of bean paste or jujube pastry. Every time I go to a cooperative (general store) with my mother, I look at the hand-painted posters of the Eight Dim Sum of Old Beijing above the counter, and my mouth almost watered. The bean paste flower cake in the promotional poster particularly caught my attention because it has the most beautiful shape. But every time I just look at it and leave reluctantly. During the Spring Festival one year, I don’t remember who sent me a [dessert box], and the box also had [Beijing Eight Pieces of Desserts] painted on it! The most eye-catching thing is the bean paste flower cake! At that time, I was walking around the snack box, waiting for the adult to give the order that it was ready to eat! Unexpectedly, my mother said: Come on, good boy, eat the peach cakes that your mother bought. Don’t take apart the box of this snack. Give it to Aunt XX later. She has always helped our family these years. I never dared to tell my mother how much I wanted to try bean paste flower cakes, so when I was a child, I grew up looking at the posters in the cooperative and on the snack boxes. (I am already bursting into tears as I write this...) Later, I slowly forgot about the bean paste flower cakes in my childhood. It was not until many years after I worked that I remembered it when I passed by Daoxiang Village. In the end, I did not buy it for myself... Now that I finally eat the bean paste flower cakes I made, I have mixed emotions. My mother never knew that I wanted to taste the taste of bean paste and flower cake so much. I just blame that era of scarcity of materials...

Tags

• baking
• all-purpose flour
• bean paste filling
• food coloring
• lard
• low gluten flour
• white sugar
• water

Ingredients

Steps

1. 1 First let’s make watery skin. This is all the ingredients for water-oil skin: 150 grams of all-purpose flour, 65 ml of water, 5 grams of white sugar, and 20 grams of lard (for halal friends, you can also replace it with butter or vegetable oil. But lard has the best shortening effect. I bought refined lard from a certain treasure. You can also buy pork fat and refine the lard yourself.) The total weight of all water-oil skin materials is about 240 grams.

   

2. 2 Add 5 grams of white sugar and 20 grams of lard to 150 grams of all-purpose flour

   

3. 3 Add another 65 ml of water. Do not add all the water at once, because the water absorption of different brands of flour may be slightly different. Add less first, then add little by little. If it feels too dry or too soft, you can adjust the amount of water appropriately

   

4. 4 Mix all the ingredients evenly and knead into a smooth dough

   

5. 5 Put it in a crisper to prevent it from drying out (the water-oil skin is now complete)

   

6. 6 Next we will make the puff pastry. This is all the ingredients used for the pastry: 120 grams of low-gluten flour, 60 grams of lard (if you are a halal friend, you can also replace it with butter or vegetable oil, but the effect of shortening lard is the best). The total weight of all the ingredients for the pastry is 180 grams

   

7. 7 To 120 grams of low-gluten flour, add 60 grams of lard directly without adding water

   

8. 8 Knead into a smooth dough. (At this point, the pastry is completed)

   

9. 9 Also put the prepared pastry into the crisper. The larger one on the left is water-oil skin, and the smaller one on the right is oil pastry. Cover and refrigerate for half an hour.

   

10. 10 It is more convenient for me to use ready-made bean paste filling for the filling, but you can also use bean paste filling. 280g

    

11. 11 Take out all three materials and weigh them. 280 grams of fillings, 240 grams of water and oil crust, and 180 grams of pastry. The total weight of all the ingredients is 700 grams, which can make 10 70-gram bean paste cakes. Divide the total weight of each ingredient by 10 to get the weight per serving. All are accurately weighed: 28 grams of filling per portion; 24 grams of water and oil crust per portion; 18 grams of pastry per portion. Knead each into balls, cover with plastic wrap to prevent drying, and rest for 15 minutes.

    

12. 12 The steps being carried out now are related to whether the finished product is crispy or not. Although it is a bit complicated, it is very important and must not be missed. Take a piece of water-oil skin and press it flat

    

13. 13 Roll it into a dough and take a piece of pastry

    

14. 14 Wrap the pastry with water-based dough to seal it, with the sealing side facing down

    

15. 15 Roll into tongue shape

    

16. 16 Roll up

    

17. 17 Roll up all the dough and pastry, cover with plastic wrap and let stand for 15 minutes

    

18. 18 After resting for 15 minutes, take a dough roll and press it into a flat shape

    

19. 19 Then roll it into a long tongue shape

    

20. 20 Roll it up again, this time the roll is much fatter than the previous one

    

21. 21 Make all secondary dough rolls, cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes

    

22. 22 When the resting time is up, take another secondary dough roll and use chopsticks to make a mark in the middle

    

23. 23 Turn both sides up

    

24. 24 Press flat (you can preheat the oven at this time, preheat to 180 degrees)

    

25. 25 Roll it out into a dough and take a bean paste filling

    

26. 26 Wrap the filling in dough and seal

    

27. 27 After wrapping all the fillings, place the sealing side down, cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes

    

28. 28 Take a piece of stuffed dough and press it into a pie shape

    

29. 29 Use a spatula to cut into eight equal parts without cutting off the middle

    

30. 30 Then twist each piece clockwise in one direction so that the bean paste filling is facing up, then flatten the whole piece and arrange the shape

    

31. 31 Use a scraper to move the bottom

    

32. 32 Place a piece of oil paper on the baking pan. If it is a non-stick baking pan, you don’t need to put it on it. Place the bean paste cake flat on the baking sheet

    

33. 33 Finally it’s time to push it into the oven. Bake on upper and lower heat at 180 degrees for 30 minutes on the middle layer. (The above oven temperatures and times are for reference only. Please set them according to your own oven conditions. It is recommended to use an oven thermometer.)

    

34. 34 Freshly baked bean paste cakes are placed on a cooling rack to cool

    

35. 35 This is food coloring (red), just 1 drop is enough

    

36. 36 Dip the tip of a chopstick into some food red and put a red dot in the middle of the bean paste flower cake.

    

37. 37 Childhood memories

    

38. 38 Crispy and crumbly

    

39. 39 It seems complicated to make, but the success rate is actually very high

    

40. 40 Exquisite snacks, made with love by yourself

    

41. 41 As long as the steps are not lazy, success is guaranteed

    

42. 42 You should also try it quickly