Red Bean Puff Pastry vs Wife Cake
I really love making layered puff pastry. You don’t need to dirty as many bowls and tools as you do for cake, and you don’t have to wait as long as for bread. Watching the dough roll back and forth in your hands, then turn into crisp flaky layers is incredibly satisfying. This recipe makes a total of 10 pieces: five red bean puff pastries and five wife cakes. If you only want to make one kind of filling instead of both, double the filling ingredients for that one.
Ingredients
Steps
First make the water dough. Knead until it reaches a windowpane stage if possible. A water dough that can form a membrane has great elasticity. Divide it evenly into 10 portions. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 20 minutes.
Now make the oil dough: mix the oil dough ingredients together, then divide evenly into 10 portions as well. Cover with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out.
Take one piece of water dough and place one piece of oil dough on it, then pinch the seam tightly to seal.
Gently flatten, then roll into a long tongue-like strip about 6–7 cm long. It doesn’t need to be very long.
Roll it up slowly, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest for 20 minutes.
Second rolling: stand the roll upright and gently press it flat first.
Roll it out slowly into a tongue shape again, not too long. If it’s too long, the layers are likely to break, which will affect the flakiness.
Roll it up again, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest for 25 minutes. While it’s resting, prepare the fillings.
Coconut glutinous rice filling: put the water, butter, and sugar into a frying pan and bring to a boil.
When the liquid comes to a full boil and bubbles, add the desiccated coconut, glutinous rice flour, and sesame seeds all at once.
Stir-fry until evenly mixed, with no raw flour visible, and the color turns slightly yellow.
Let it cool slightly, then divide evenly into 5 portions.
Divide the red bean paste into 5 portions as well, 40 g each.
Now start wrapping the filling: press down firmly in the center with your thumb.
Press both ends toward the center to form a roughly round shape. Use a rolling pin to gently roll it larger and rounder.
Use a rolling pin to roll it out slightly round, ready for wrapping the filling.
To wrap: take the pastry, place a portion of filling in the center, gather and seal the opening in the crook between thumb and index finger, pinch off any excess dough, then flatten slightly with three fingers.
Wrap the coconut filling for the wife cakes in the same way.
For wife cakes, after wrapping the filling, press them flat, score a few slits on the surface, brush with egg wash, and sprinkle with white sesame seeds.
For the red bean puffs, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with black sesame seeds. You can bake both kinds together. Bake in the middle rack at 180°C for 25–30 minutes. Use black sesame for the red bean pastries and white sesame for the wife cakes so they’re easy to tell apart.
I ate two while they were still hot. The homemade red bean paste is not too sweet or greasy—just incredibly good.
Finished wife cakes.