【Zhejiang】Sunflower Cake with Bean Paste Filling

Overview

During the Spring Festival, make a plate of beautifully shaped sunflower cakes and sit together as a family to drink tea and eat Chinese pastries. It’s a unique experience! In the modern era of extremely abundant material, we who usually eat fat and drink sweet things may no longer eat cakes, and instead eat more burgers from McDonald's or KFC. However, older people will never forget the sweet time that Chinese dim sum once brought us. Those wonderful flavors will never be forgotten in our childhood memories, and many stories derived from pastries have always been interpreted in different eras, with long-lasting interest.

Tags

• baking
• bean paste filling
• clear water
• cooked black sesame seeds
• egg white
• egg yolk liquid
• flour
• lard
• low gluten flour
• powdered sugar

Ingredients

Steps

1. 1 Ingredients for water-oil dough: 200 grams of ordinary flour, 20 grams of lard, 90 grams of water, 15 grams of egg whites, and 30 grams of powdered sugar. Put them into a mixing bowl. Stir them with chopsticks into large pieces of cotton wool and then knead them with your hands into a dough that is not sticky. It is soft and tough! After the dough is kneaded, put it into a plastic bag and let it rise at room temperature for 30 minutes;

   

2. 2 Pastry ingredients: Put 160 grams of low-gluten flour and 80 grams of lard into a mixing bowl, mix the flour and lard and knead continuously until it forms a ball. After the dough is kneaded, put it into a plastic bag and let it stand at room temperature for 30 minutes;

   

3. 3 Divide the rested water-oil dough into 18 equal parts;

   

4. 4 Divide the rested pastry dough into 18 equal parts;

   

5. 5 Take 1 piece of water-oil dough that has rested, flatten it into a round shape, place the pastry dough in the center of the water-you-leaf dough, wrap it up, and place it with the seam facing down;

   

6. 6 Use a rolling pin to roll the wrapped dough into an oval shape. After rolling it out, roll it up from the bottom up;

   

7. 7 Flatten the dough, roll it into an oval shape again, and roll it up again from bottom to top;

   

8. 8 As shown in the picture, roll out all 18 pieces of dough and let them rest for about 15 minutes (don’t forget to cover them with plastic wrap!);

   

9. 9 Divide the red bean filling into 18 portions, each about 15 grams, and roll into balls;

   

10. 10 Take 1 piece of rested dough, roll it into a round shape (thick in the middle and thin around the perimeter), place 1 piece of red bean filling in the center, and wrap it up. After wrapping, roll it into a round cake shape with the seam facing down;

    

11. 11 Divide the round cake into 6 equal parts and cut into six parts with a knife, being careful not to cut in the middle;

    

12. 12 Cut two more small slits into each equal portion until you can see the filling, but don’t cut all the way through;

    

13. 13 Pinch each portion together from the edges and pinch it into six beautiful petals. Do it one by one, place it on a baking sheet, brush the center of the flower with egg yolk liquid, and sprinkle with black sesame seeds for decoration. After doing this, let it sit for about 15 minutes;

    

14. 14 Place in a preheated 180°C oven and bake on the middle shelf for 20 minutes, until the surface is golden brown.