Chinese Peach Blossom Pastries Recipe (桃花酥 táohuā sū)

This traditional Chinese peach blossom pastries recipe pairs melt-in-the-mouth flaky pastry with sticky sweet jujube paste.

Almost exactly like ancient Chinese jujube flower pastries, 桃花酥 táohuā sū (meaning 'peach blossom pastry') is made with a double pastry dough that's rolled to create lots and lots of fine, flaky, delicate layers, which is used to encase jujube (Chinese red date) paste. The shape and colour are a bit more modern, but these peach blossom cakes have still been around for almost as long as their ancient counterparts.

Technically, you should shape your Chinese flower pastries with five petals if you really want them to look like peach blossoms – but I like the look of six. In fact, you can add as many petals as you like, and you can even add whatever colour you like to the oil dough to make other colourful flowers.

You only need to add food colouring to the oil dough, because the two doughs are rolled so thinly together that the colour shows through strongly in the end.

You can also watch me make these on my YouTube channel, Tashcakes:

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes 10 peach blossom pastries.)

Ingredients for Jujube Paste:

370g dried jujubes (seedless)
Enough water to cover
2 tbsp vegetable oil (a flavourless oil like corn, sunflower or rapeseed oil)

Ingredients for Water Dough:

250g plain flour
115g shortening (Crisco or Trex), melted
30g icing sugar
65ml water

Ingredients for Oil Dough:

150g plain flour
80g shortening (Crisco or Trex), melted
A few drops of pink food colouring

To Decorate:

1 egg yolk, whisked
Small handful of sesame seeds

Method:

1. To make the jujube paste, put the jujubes in a saucepan along with just enough water to cover them, and simmer them until tender (about an hour).

2. Leave them to cool a little before peeling off their skins (discarding both the skins and the water).

3. Add the peeled dates to a frying pan or wok, along with the oil, and mash and continuously stir over a medium heat until it's reduced down to a thick, dark, dough-like consistency. Scoop into a bowl, cover with clingfilm so the top doesn't dry out and leave to cool completely.

4. Divide into 10 portions, roll into balls, and set aside.

5. Make the water dough by stirring its ingredients together in one bowl and kneading until it comes together smoothly, and the oil dough by combining its ingredients in a separate bowl. Separate and roll both into 10 balls each.

6. Take a ball of water dough and flatten it out into a circle, pop an oil dough ball in the centre and close up the water dough around it like a dumpling. Repeat with the rest of the water and dough balls.

7. Roll the stuffed balls out into a long oval shape and roll up into a fat spiral. Cover with cling film and rest for 10 minutes. Turn it 90° and roll it out into another oval, and roll up again. Repeat with the rest of the balls, and let them rest for another 10 minutes.

8. At this stage, preheat the oven to 160°C and line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

9. Take one of your pastry logs and poke a crease in the middle of it, and fold the two spiral ends inwards. Flatten it down into a rough disc shape, pop a jujube paste ball in the middle, and close up like a dumpling again. Repeat with the rest of the pastry logs and dough balls, covering them with clingfilm as you go so they don't dry out.

10. Roll the balls into fat discs and, using a sharp knife or kitchen scissors, cut five or six 'spokes' into the discs (but not cutting right into the centre of the circles). Make a dent in the centre of the outside of each petal, pinch the outsides of each segment to form points, and place your Chinese flower pastries on the baking sheet.

11. Dab on a little beaten egg yolk in the centre of each, sprinkle over a pinch of sesame seeds over the egg yolk centres, and bake for 15–20 minutes, just before the pastry starts going brown but stopping just short of it.

12. Leave to cool on a wire rack before eating.

Enjoy, and have fun.