When thinking about Mulan, I knew I wanted a traditionally Chinese dessert, so I found a recipe for Sweetheart Cake, AKA wife cake or marriage pie. This is made with layers of flaky pastry paired with a wintermelon filling. (Yes, you read that correctly. Wintermelon, not watermelon.) And wintermelon was a bit difficult to find, but I ended up using this package that I had to order from Amazon.

For this recipe, you will need:

• filling
  • 4 oz candied wintermelon, diced finely
  • 1 TBS roasted white sesame seeds, ground or powdered
  • 1 TBS unsweetened coconut shreds
  • 40 g cooked glutinous rice flour
  • 2 oz coconut oil
  • 1.75 oz water
• Water dough
  • 3/4 cups flour
  • 1/8 cup vegan butter
  • 50 ml water
• Oil dough
  • 2/3 cup flour
  • 1/4 cup vegan butter

Before you can even really start mixing ingredients together, you have to cook your rice flour. It’s not really a flour substitute in the way that we (Westerners) use flour in baking. In this recipe, it’s an additional method of helping all the ingredients stick together. What I did was use a steamer. I put a 9in parchment round (that I usually put in the bottom of a cake pan) in the steamer basket, then filled the bottom pot with water and cooked my flour with steam for about an hour, until it was nice and sticky.

THEN, you should combine it with the chopped wintermelon, sesame seeds, coconut, coconut oil, and water. Once this mixture is made, divide it by weight into 8 balls.

Meanwhile, mix together the flour, vegan butter, and water to make the water dough. Similarly, divide it into 8 portions, then cover and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Lastly, mix together the flour and butter for the oil dough, divide it into 8 portions, and let it rest for 30 minutes.

After your doughs have rested, preheat the oven to 400F and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Carefully roll out each portion of the water dough into a round disc. Then, place a portion of the oil dough onto each. Wrap the water dough around it, and close the seams. Then, with your newly combined dough balls, flatten each one into an oval shape, and roll it up like a jelly roll. Cover and let them rest for 20-30 minutes.

After the first rest, turn the rolls 90 degrees, flatten them out, and roll them up again, and let them sit for another 20-30 minutes.

After the last rest, push down the center of the dough, seam-side up, with one thumb and pinch the two ends together, then flatten the dough out with your palm, and roll it out with a rolling pin. Place a spoonful of the wintermelon filling into the center of the dough, then gather up the seams. Then, flatten the dough into a disc, being careful not to tear it, and cut two slits in the top of the disc.

Brush the cakes with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds on top, then bake the buns for 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy!