Cantonese Wife Cake | 老婆餅

June 8, 2020

Why all of a sudden?

I do not think I have made many Cantonese desserts/snack before except for egg tart, banana mochi cake/roll and semi-success Chinese Short Bread? Wife Cake 老婆餅 is one of signature, representative Cantonese sweets. Even I do not have craving for it and have not had one for years, I still miss it’s flaky texture, sweet but not too sweet filling with a hint of coconut.

The filling of Wife Cake did not unveil until I looked up YouTube videos… In my memory, it’s a mixture of solid and chew, soft ingredients. It turns out that the main ingredient is wintermelon! I never thought a “veggie” will be filling for sweets! And the solid texture comes from sesame, the soft, slightly chewiness, stickiness come from glutinous rice flour, and of course, there is some shredded coconut to add the flavors.

TAKEAWAYS

Water-oil dough is the only place I can adjust sweetness other than the filling, and a perfect place to adjust sweetness as I want the first bite of Wife Cake, before hitting the wintermelon filling, tastes sweet already.
- Kneading water-oil dough is DIFFERENT from kneading a bread dough; instead of using body weight to knead dough, use the arm and palm to roll it out, roll it back up, like washing clothes.
Oil dough making was a mess, last time I made oil dough for Taro Pastry was a mess, this time has improved but still added extra flour to save myself.
- Key really is to clean the hand, coat palm with flour, and go mix again.
- Be patient and do not get frustrated by the messy hand and dough.
- Dough will turns from bright yellow to yellow-white-ish and less sticky
Filling could be more moisture by turning down the stove heat temperature.
Next Experiment Improvement:
- More moist filling
- Sweeter water-oil dough
- Be better at oil-dough making, use lard or solid fat if possible. Ghee I used was more liquidy.

RECIPE

The following ingredients are enough for 8 Wife Cake.

Water-oil dough 水油皮:

100g all-purpose flour
30g lard ( I substitute with ghee)
20ml syrup
40ml hot water
Note: can be sweeter

Oil dough: 油皮

75g all-purpose flour ( I used cake flour)
35g lard (I used ghee)
Note: flour : oil = 2: 1;
- my dough is not forming so I added ~10g more cake + AP flour, but I think I should not have, as the final product is a little dryer than I thought

Filling:

200g wintermelon (That’s right!! I was quite surprised this “veggie” is used as sweets’ fillings)
40g
1/8 tsp salt
10g butter
10g shredded coconut
10g sesame
40g mochiko/glutinous rice flour

Brushing:

1 egg yolk, can dilute with milk/ water if needed
5g sesame

Part I: Make filling first as it needs to be refrigerated before use

Step 1: grate or blend 200g (or more) wintermelon; cook at medium-high heat for 3-4 mins

wintermelon is composed of A LOT OF waterrrrrrr, so try to drain/sieve out as much water as possible before cooking to shorten cooking time

Step 2: add in 40g sugar, 1/8 tsp salt, 10g butter; cook medium-high heat for 3mins

salt helps bring out sweetness

Step 3: add in 10g shredded coconut, 10g sesame; cook medium-low to medium heat; preserve some moisture.

Step 4: cook 40g mochiko flour over low heat till slightly turns brown; remove wintermelon filling mix from heat, add mochiko flour.

stir, mix filling with flour OFF stove/heat; it will form a smooth, non-stick filling (clean pan and spatula);
if still very wet, can cook over low heat.
do not make the filling too dry.

Step 5: cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before use.

Part II: Water-oil dough & oil dough

Water Oil Dough:

Mix all ingredients:
- 110 All-purpose flour
- 30g lard/ghee
- 20ml syrup
- 40ml hot water
- Note: dough is easily form and not sticky~
Use palm to “knead” dough for 3-4mins
- roll forward, roll up from the back, repeat
- do not over-knead and form too much gluten
- this step is to have stretchy water-oil dough later, and will taste flaky like puff pastry later
Rest in room temperature for at least 1 hour

Oil dough:

Mix 75g cake/all purpose flour and 35g lard/ghee till dough form
- my dough is VERY wet so I added 10g more flour.. might have made oil dough bit too dry
Rest and refrigerate for 15+ mins

Part III: Assembling Wife Cakes~~

Always, always, use a wet towel to cover ingredients not used to prevent from drying out!

Divide water-oil dough and oil dough into 8 pieces:
- my water-oil dough = 21g / dough
- my oil dough = 17g / dough
Roll out water-oil dough as outer layer, wrap around oil-dough and seal
Roll the ball out as palm size
Roll it up again and rest dough for 15mins with the edge on top

Roll out along the long side of dough, it’s ok if skin breaks.
Roll it up again as previously
Press down the center, bring two sides of dough together, which will be the inner side of Wife Cake (the smooth and pretty side will face down for now)
Roll into a circle for wrapping the filling

Divide filling into 8 pieces (~17g for me, could be more)
Wrap filling with rolled-out dough mix, seal tightly, otherwise the filling will leak
Roll into a circular shape cake; flip so the smooth side is on top now 😉

Brush egg yolk on top, once or twice depends on how deep the color you want; I brushed twice
Sprinkle 5g sesame on these Wife Cakes
Use a sharp knife and cut 2 parallel lines across the cake
- cut alllll the way to the bottom of Wife Cake, otherwise, the skin will puff out and might break when baking
Bake at 355F for 15-20 mins