Make sure to choose ground pork with some fat marbling. This is to ensure you'll get tender pork jerky later
Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix with your clean hand for about 1 minute. The meat mixture will turn pasty, which is what we want
Cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate to let it marinade overnight in the fridge, at least 6-8 hours is my suggestion for a great flavor
Shaping:
Preheat oven to 300 F (150 C) for conventional oven. For a convection oven, lower the temperature by 15 C or 20 F. Scoop the marinated pork on top of a piece of large parchment paper.
Cover with another large piece of parchment paper. Use a rolling pin to roll and flatten the meat into about 3 mm in thickness
I use a spatula to tidy up the edge
Baking:
Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Then remove from the oven. Increase the oven temperature to 425 F (220 C) for a conventional oven. For a convection oven, lower the temperature by 15 C or 20 F.
The meat is partially cooked at this point and not much color going on at this time.
Use a 3-inch round cookie cutter and cut as closely as possible to get rounds of meat patties. Remove the extra irregular pieces. Those extra irregular shape pieces can be baked as well
Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush with the honey mixture on top. Bake again at the higher temperature you set earlier for about 3 minutes on one side,
Remove from the oven and flip to the other side, brush with honey mixture again
Bake for another 2-3 minutes or they have a deep golden brown and nice caramelization
Storage:
Let them cool down and then store in air-tight container. Bak kwa is best consumer after 24 hours as the flavors have really developed. They can be kept at room temperature for up to 3 days or stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 month