Pastry-style mooncakes are filled with sweetened red bean paste and made with coconut oil instead of lard and colored with natural juice from blue pea flowers. Ultra flaky crust you will absolutely love!
Add the blue pea flower and vinegar to 80 gr of warm water. Let them sit for 15 minutes. Use the back of the spoon to lightly mash the flower. Squeeze out any liquid from the flowers and you have the blue color liquid now
Prepare the filling (without salted yolk):
I use a store-bought red bean paste and roll the paste into about 50 gr balls. Set aside
Prepare the filling (with salted yolk):
If you plan to use egg yolk, you need a smaller ball, about 30-35 gr. Roll into balls. Flatten with your palm to about 4-inch circle. Place one salted egg yolk in the middle and wrap the bean paste around it. Continue with the rest
Prepare the water dough:
Add sugar to the warm blue liquid. In a large mixing bowl, rub the shortening into the flour. It will feel crumbly. Gradually add the blue liquid and continue to mix and knead until you form a non-sticky dough. Cover and let it rest for 30 minutes
Prepare the oil dough:
Rub the shortening into the flour until it forms a smooth dough. Cover and let the dough rest for 30 minutes
Shaping:
Give both dough a few kneads and they should be smooth now. Divide the water dough and oil dough each into 6 equal portions
Keeping the rest covered, take one oil dough and one water dough. Flatten the water dough and place one oil dough in the middle
Wrap the water dough around the oil dough. So the oil dough is nested inside the water dough now. Repeat with the rest of the doughs
Use a rolling pin to roll this dough into a flat oval shape
Roll it up tightly starting from the bottom like a Swiss roll
Turn the dough vertical and roll it out again
Now you have a long flat strip of dough. Roll it as thin as you can as it will give you more spiral in the finished products later
Roll it up tightly again starting from the bottom into a Swiss roll
Cut this into half
Here is how the cut-side looks like (all those beautiful spirals are right here after baking!). Keep them covered tightly and rest for another 30 minutes before rolling them out
Work with one at a time, flip the cut side down and use a rolling pin to roll it out into a circle, about 7-inch in width
Place the filling in the middle
Gather the sides to wrap the filling. Pinch to seal at the bottom. When you flip it over, this is how it looks like. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper
Repeat with the rest of the doughs. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees while you are halfway through working with the dough
Baking:
Place the baking sheet, 3rd rack from the top into the oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until the bottom is golden brown. Remove from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes and then remove to cooling rack to let them cool down completely
Serving and storing:
They can be served on the same day after baking, but I feel like they taste better the next day as the flavor has time to develop. They can be kept at room temperature for 2-3 days in an air-tight container or if you want to preserve the flaky crust, store them in a paper bag, fold it over. The crust will soften in the next few days, which is normal. Simply reheat in the oven at 350 F (180 C) for 5 minutes or so and they are as good as new
They also freeze very well. I wrap each in a cling wrap and then put in a freezer bag, push all the air out and seal the bag. Keep them in the freezer for one month max. When ready to serve, simply thaw at room temperature and you can recrisp it in the oven at 350 F (180 C) for 5 minutes or so
Video
Notes
If you decide to use food coloring: you can use 80 gr water with food coloring if you want
If you use coconut oil, make sure it's not in liquid. If it's really warm where you are, I recommend using shortening or lard because it's a bit hard to work with coconut oil as they get melty so quickly. You can refrigerate the coconut oil briefly until they turn solid, but once you touch the dough a lot, they get melty in warm weather