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Homemade Flaky Pastry Wrappers Chinese Style is the key to yummy food such as Suzhou Style Xian Rou Yue Bing {鲜肉月饼}. Also short for Rou Yue Bing, the Savory Pork Mooncake is a traditional and iconic Huai Yang Cuisine food.

Pork fat, or lard, is a traditional ingredient for Chinese-style flaky pastry. I, however, use much healthier and more nutritious avocado oil instead. With this recipe, you can make a satisfyingly yummy flaky pastry anytime your want. Even better is knowing you are taking care of your body by feeding them impressive healthy nutrients.

How to make Chinese Falky Pastry Wrapper {Easy Yummy Healthy Way}? — Homemade Flaky Pastry Wrappers {Yummy and Healthy Way}

Chinese Style Flaky Pastry Wrappers Ingredients

Chinese Style Flaky Pastry Wrappers use two types of dough, namely water-based and oil-based dough.

The water-based dough, often called Shui You Pi {水油皮} in Chinese, uses water as the primary liquid to make a dough out of all-purpose flour, although a splash of oil and an egg is also used. A little cane sugar and salt are there to flavor the dough just right.

The oil-based dough, often called You Su {油酥} in Chinese, uses exclusively oil to make a dough out of all-purpose flour. It looks like cookie dough, just softer. Pork fat or lard is the traditional type of oil used for making oil-based dough. I, however, use the healthier and more nutritious avocado oil instead.

How to make Chinese Style Flaky Pastry Wrappers?

Chinese-style Flaky Pastry Wrappers use the water-based dough to wrap around the oil-based dough, which then gets pressed, layered, and rolled into a dumpling wrapper. See the Recipe for a detailed step-by-step tutorial. Here are a few things to highlight:

Tip No.1 is to make two types of dough, water-based vs. oil-based dough

It is important to make both doughs very soft and moist. This is because we are going to play with the dough a lot and the dough tends to get dried out along the process.

Since we will need to wrap the oil-based dough with water-based dough, the water-based dough needs to be a little more.

Tip No.2 is to divide each dough into equal small portions

This recipe can make two dozen Chinese Style Savory Pork Mooncakes. Divide each type of dough into 24 equal amount portions. For the water-based dough portion, it is about 20 grams, whereas, for the oil-based dough portion, it is about 13 grams.

Divide water-based dough into equal portions for flaky pastry wrappers — Divide Water-Based Dough into Equal Portions for Flaky Pastry Wrappers

Divide oil-based dough into equal portions for flaky pastry wrappers — Divide Oil-Based Dough into Equal Portions for Flaky Pastry Wrappers

Tip No.3 is to roll, wrap, press and roll the two types of dough together and into a dumpling wrapper

For each portion of the dough, The first is to roll the water-based dough into a dumpling wrapper. See here for more details on how to use a rolling pin to do that quickly and easily. It is the same technique using a rolling pin to roll a bun wrapper.

Use both hands to roll the oil-based dough into a mini ball and wrap it around using the water-based dough wrapper.

I then use a similar method used for Chinese iconic Cong You Bing {Chinese Scallion Pancakes} to layer the dough. Last but not least is to use the rolling pin to roll the layered dough disk into a dumpling wrapper.

how to wrap, press and roll flaky pastry wrappers — How to Roll Chinese Flaky Pastry Wrappers

Tips & Tricks for making Chinese Flaky Pastry Wrappers

We work hardcore on these wrappers, which tend to dry out the dough. In addition, the content of oil-based dough makes the wrapper dough not so flexible and stretchy. This means the dough is a bit tricky to handle compared to the regular all-purpose flour dough wrapper.

Because of these factors, make sure you cover the dough to keep them moist during the process. In addition, I usually make all dough spindles first, see step 4 in the above picture. But roll out the wrapper and wrap the pastry one by one.

Last but not least, if the dough feels a bit dry, add a few drops of oil to your palms and then rub them together against each other. Do not use water to damp your hands, it will separate the layers of the dough.

Grill Suzhou Style Pork Mooncake {Rou Yue Bing} in the cast iron pan

How to Make Chinese Flaky Pastry Wrappers?

Yield: 24 pastry wrappers

Active Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour

Difficulty: medium

Homemade Flaky Pastry Wrappers Chinese Style is the key to yummy food such as Suzhou Style Xian Rou Yue Bing {鲜肉月饼}. With this recipe, you can make a satisfyingly yummy flaky pastry anytime your want. Even better is knowing you are taking care of your body by feeding them impressive healthy nutrients.

Materials

For Water-Based Dough:

300 g all-purpose flour, organic unbleached preferred
1 egg
30 g avocado oil
30 g cane sugar, organic unrefined preferred
1/4 tsp salt, Himalayan Pink Salt or sea salt
105 g water, see notes

For Oil-Based Dough:

240 g all-purpose flour, organic unbleached preferred
105 g avocado oil

Tools

Kitchen Scale
Mixing Bowls
Chinese Rolling Pin
Measuring cups and spoons
egg whisk

Instructions

Make the Dough:

Gather ingredients. In a larger mixing bowl, add egg, sugar, salt, and avocado oil. Add the flour for oil-based dough in another mixing bowl. Use a kitchen scale and measuring tools to measure out the proper volume for avocado oil, water, etc.
Make the Water-Based Dough. Whisk everything in the larger mixing bowl together into a smooth paste. Add the flour, gradually add the water while mixing and kneading, until you have a super soft and semi-sticky dough. Cover the dough with a damp kitchen towel and let it rest while you make the oil-based dough.
Make the Oil-Based Dough. Gradually add the oil into the mixing bowl, mix and knead until you have soft cookie dough.
Divide the Water-Based Dough into 24 equal portions, each weighing about 20 g. Use a kitchen scale to help measure the portion. Cover the dough to keep them moist.
Divide the Oil-Based Dough into 24 equal portions, each weighing about 13 g. Use the kitchen scale to help measure the portion.

Make Flaky Pastry Dough Sprindles:

Take one portion of water-based dough and roll it into a wrapper using the rolling pin. It is the same technique as rolling the bun wrapper. See here for a step-by-step tutorial.
Take one portion of boil-based dough and roll it into a mini ball. While the left hand (the less dominant one) holds the water-based wrapper, place the boil-based dough ball in the middle of the wrapper.
Fold the wrapper toward the middle to wrap the oil-based dough ball with the water-based dough wrapper into a round disk.
Put the disk down and roll it into a long stripe using the rolling pin.
Starting from one end, scroll the long stripe into a spindle.
Repeat this for all the dough portions, until you have 24 dough spindles. Cover the dough to keep them moist.

Roll Flaky Pastry Wrappers:

Now we are going to turn each dough spindle into a flaky pastry wrapper. Press down the spindle and roll it flat into a narrow stripe.
Starting from one end, scroll the narrow stripe into a thick roll.
Pick up the thick roll, press, and knead using both hands into a round disk. Make sure the disk has a smooth edge.
Use the same technique used for rolling water-based wrapper to roll the dough disk into a wrapper.
Hooray, you are ready to wrap the flaky pastries.

Notes

The water and oil required to make the dough also largely depend on the climate of your environment. The drier the surrounding environment, the more water or oil is required to make the dough.