The Chinese way of making flaky pastry, also known as Huaiyang Pastry 淮揚酥皮, is the bomb! You start with a basic layered dough that produces a wonderfully light and delicate flaky pastry. This basic dough can be rolled out and wrapped in three different ways to produce different pastry skins.
In the first method the layers are hidden, only showing after the pastry is opened (see our Chinese Flaky Pastry with Lotus Seed Paste 白蓮蓉酥餅 recipe).
The second way exposes the flaky layers. We wanted to try something alternative for this year's Mid Autumn Festival 中秋節 so we used the exposed layers method to make this truly elegant Chinese Spiral Flaky Pastry Mooncake 千層紫薯酥, yummiliciously stuffed with a lush soft purple sweet potato filling and a hidden heart of tender white mochi.
