Crispy Chinese Pancakes With Black Sesame Filling

Red bean pancakes were among my favorite desserts as a kid. I love the crisp pastry contrasted with the rich and warm red bean paste. Ingredients: Crispy pancakes: 40g all-purpose flour 60g glutinous rice flour 1 egg 150ml milk ¼ teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon oil (vegetable, grapeseed etc). Black sesame filling 40g black sesame seeds 1 teaspoon white sesame seeds 50g butter 45g sugar Method: Prepare the black sesame filling first. Toast the black and white sesame seeds in a pan over low heat until the white sesame seeds are golden. Leave to cool. Once the toasted seeds are cool, grind the seeds in a mortar & pestle, or process in a spice grinder until fine. Transfer the ground seeds, sugar and butter into a pan over medium heat and stir until the mixture forms a thick paste. Leave to cool. Once the mixture is cool, divide the mixture into 3 portions. Place each portion in cling wrap and shape it into a rectangular shape. Refrigerate until required. Make the pancake mixture next. Add all the dry ingredients into a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the milk and egg until combined. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and slowly whisk in the milk mixture until smooth and there are no lumps. Finally, add the oil to the mixture. Heat a pan with a small amount of oil under medium heat. Once hot, pour enough batter into the pan to form a thin layer. Cook the pancake until small air bubbles form and transfer to a plate. Repeat with the remaining batter. Depending on how thick the pancake is, you can make up to 3 pancakes. Once the cooked pancakes are cool to touch, place one portion of the black sesame paste filling in the centre of one pancake, and fold all 4 sides to form a rectangle. Pan-fry each wrapped pancake again until both sides are golden and crispy. Drain the pancakes on some kitchen paper, and then cut into smaller pieces. Sprinkle extra black sesame seeds on top and serve immediately. The pancakes are best eaten warm. Notes: If you prefer, you can use substitute with other fillings, e.g. red bean paste or mangoes and fresh cream to make mango pancakes. You can also substitute with a savoury filling. The pancake mixture makes around 3 pancakes. If you only wish to make one pancake, you can store the remaining unfilled pancakes in the freezer for use next time. The black sesame mixture makes around 130g. Depending on how much filling you want to add to the pancakes (I normally like to add around 30-40g of the mixture on each pancake), you can store the remaining mixture in the freezer. You can use it as a filling in cookies or tang yuan (glutinous rice balls) etc.