Chinese Jujube Flower Pastries Recipe (枣花酥 zǎohuāsū)

This Chinese jujube flower pastries recipe will have you feeling like an emperor or empress.

枣花酥 zǎohuāsū is a traditional pastry that's often included in the 'Beijing big eight' (京八件 jīng bā jiàn, 'eight pieces of Beijing'). This was a set of eight desserts/snacks made in the Qing dynasty by the imperial kitchen. While the eight specific desserts changed throughout time – I can never find a set list of eight – you can certainly see why this particular one was fit for royalty, and why it almost always features in souvenir snack boxes from Beijing.

Zaohuasu are made with tangy-sweet jujube (also known as Chinese red date) paste enclosed in delicately flaky pastry, and perfect with a cup of hot green tea. Because jujube paste isn't as widely available here in the UK to buy ready-made as red bean paste is, I made it from scratch. Thankfully it's quite a simple process to make Chinese date paste.

You can actually buy a stamp for the red dots in the middle of these Chinese jujube flower cakes, but it's also easy to use a clean cotton bud to dot on the details.

Like my Teochew taro mooncakes recipe, you need a water dough and an oil dough to make the flaky pastry. Both pastries actually have oil (in this case, vegetable shortening) in them, but only one has water – which is the water dough. This means that the two different pastries won't meld together in the process, creating separate, delicate layers.

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

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes eight large or 10 small jujube flower pastries.)

Ingredients for Jujube Paste:

300g 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

To Decorate:

Red food colouring

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 eight (or 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 eight (or 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 clingfilm and rest for 10 minutes. Turn it 90° and roll it 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 180°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 eight 'spokes' into the discs (but not cutting right into the centre of the circles). Carefully twist the spokes to the side to expose the date paste inside like petals, flattening down just a little so it keeps its shape. Place on your baking sheet.

11. Dab on a few dots of red food colouring in the centre of each and bake for 15–18 minutes, so that the pastry is only just showing signs of going brown but is still pale.

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

Enjoy, and have fun.