Taiwanese Sun Pastry

Taiwanese Sun Pastry and Taiwanese Fung Li Shu are two of the most popular exports of Taiwan. I used to receive these from friends who had returned from their trips to Taiwan either on business or for leisure. They are only nice if you buy them from the right shop!
This Taiwanese Sun Pastry is a very fragile pastry - the pastry is very flaky with a melt in the mouth texture and the filling is a mildly sweet chewy QQ mass because of the use of maltose.




Ingredients:
Water Dough
50g bread flour
120g cake flour
40g shortening/lard
20g corn oil
65ml water
20g icing sugar
1/8 tsp salt

Oil Dough
105g cake flour
50g shortening/lard

Filling
80g icing sugar (sieved)
20g maltose
1/2 tsp boiling water
20g butter (room temperature)
30g cake flour

Egg wash: 1 egg lightly beaten with 1 tsp water (optional)
The original pastry do not need egg wash!

Method:
1. Water dough - Sieve all the flours into a big mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle and add in all the rest of the ingredients for the water dough. Mix till a dough is formed and knead this dough till it is smooth and shiny. Cling wrap dough and rest it for 30 minutes. Divide dough into 10 pieces of 30g each.
2. Oil dough - Mix all ingredients together till a piable dough is formed. Cling wrap dough and rest it for 30 minutes. Divide dough into 10 pieces of 15g each.
3. Filling - Dilute maltose with 1/2 tsp boiling water, add this to icing sugar and mix well. Knead in the butter then the sieved flour till a smooth dough is formed. Divide filling into 10 pieces of 15g each.
4. Wrap oil dough with water dough.
5. Flatten it with a rolling pin into a long rectangular shape. Roll it up like a swiss roll.
6. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat step (5).
7. Shape it into a round ball and flatten it, wrap in the filling.
8. Flatten the sun pastry into a 9 - 10cm flat circular shape and poke some holes on top of the pastry with a fork. Do not poke right through the bottom layer of pastry otherwise the filling will leak from the back.
9. Bake in a lined tray at 180C for 25 minutes or till lightly brown.

Notes:
I have adjusted all sugar amount, so there is no need to reduce any more sugar.
I used Crisco all vegetable shortening instead of lard, hence there will be a difference in term of the quality of pastry.



Guide to shaping the dough

This step-by-step guide will show you how to get the swirl effect on the pastry. However, if you are doing it for the first time ignore Picture 7 -8 but follow the directions as in Step 7 - Step 8 in the Method section. Don't forget to poke some holes on the surface of the pastry otherwise the filling will start to ooze out in all directions in the process of baking. Have fun!