Taiwanese Taro Swirl Mooncakes
Flaky spiral pastries with a beautiful purple-and-white swirl, filled with sweet taro paste. Makes 20 pastries.
🍽️ Makes 20
Ingredients
| 2 lb | 905 g | taro root |
| 1 teaspoon | 5 ml | kosher salt |
| 3/4 cup | 180 ml | sugar |
| 1/4 cup | 60 ml | coconut oil |
| 1 3/4 cup | 420 ml | flour (white dough) |
| 1/4 cup | 60 ml | powdered sugar |
| 1/2 teaspoon | 2.5 ml | kosher salt |
| 6 tablespoons | 90 ml | coconut oil (white dough) |
| — | water | |
| 1 1/2 cup | 360 ml | flour (purple dough) |
| 1/2 teaspoon | 2.5 ml | kosher salt |
| 7 tablespoons | 105 ml | oil (purple dough) |
| — | purple food coloring |
Instructions
- Peel and cube the taro. Steam for about 30-40 minutes until the taro is fork tender. Use a ricer or mash the taro into a paste. Mix with the salt, sugar, and coconut oil. Set aside to cool.
- Sift together the flour, powdered sugar, and salt for the white dough in a medium bowl. Add the coconut oil and 1/4 cup of water. Stir and add more water if necessary, a tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together. Knead for a few minutes until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and salt for the purple dough. Add the oil and a few drops of purple food coloring. Add more food coloring as necessary to get a pale but noticeably purple dough. (I used a gel food coloring, and for some reason it never really spread very well throughout the dough and mostly stayed in little specks.) This dough will look and act more like wet sand than pastry dough.
- Divide both doughs into 10 pieces and refrigerate for about 20 minutes to rest and chill slightly.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Roll one of the balls of white dough into a rough circle and wrap it around a ball of the purple dough, sealing it completely. Roll the combined dough into a long oval and then roll it up into a spiral. With the seam on the bottom, rotate the dough 90 degrees and roll out again into a long rectangle. Roll the rectangle up into a spiral again and slice in half. You'll now have two pieces of dough with beautiful spirals showing on the cut sides.
- Place the cut side down and flatten the dough with your hands. Roll out into a rough circle. It's okay if the layers tear a little through this whole process. Take a spoonful of the taro paste and place it in the center of the dough. Gently pull the dough upward and around the paste to seal it inside. Don't worry if the edges don't seal all the way; the dough doesn't stick to itself very easily. Flip the ball over and gently reshape so that the spiral is centered on top and the bottom is slightly flattened.
- Place on a Silpat- or parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool before eating.
Note: I ended up with a lot of leftover taro paste, so I used it to make taro swirled Hokkaido milk bread!