This crispy, flaky Sichuan mooncake — jiaoyan mabing — layers a buttery (oil) pastry around a fragrant sesame, sugar, salt, and Sichuan peppercorn filling, just like the ones eaten at Mid-Autumn Festival for centuries.
这款酥脆的四川椒盐麻饼，把油酥皮层层包裹在芝麻、糖、盐和花椒的馅料里，正是中秋团圆桌上流传了上百年的老味道。

📹 Watch the Recipe

Recipe from CookingBomb 袁倩祎, an English-language Chinese cooking channel inspired by the cook’s Wenjiang grandmother.

🥘 Why This Recipe Works

Every year around Mid-Autumn Festival, nearly a billion people across China and the diaspora sit down to tiny round cakes — mooncakes — that all mean the same thing: reunion (团圆). But China never agreed on a single cake. In the western province of Sichuan, in the old town of Wenjiang, the mooncake is this one: jiaoyan mabing, a flaky pepper-sesame pastry that carries the tingle of Sichuan peppercorn in every bite.

This is the taste of childhood for many Sichuan cooks. The filling is remarkably simple — six ingredients: flour, sugar, sesame, a touch of salt, and plenty of Sichuan peppercorn. That combination sounds odd until you try it: the peppercorn leaves a gentle numbing tingle on the tongue, while toasted sesame fills the mouth with nutty fragrance and the sugar brings just a whisper of sweetness. It is a savoury-sweet balance you rarely find in a dessert.

The pastry itself is the craft. Two doughs — a plain oil dough and a water-oil dough — are rolled together, wrapped, and pleated to create dozens of fine, flaky layers. Locals say it takes five years of practice to master shaking the bamboo basket that coats each cake in sesame. Six ingredients, two doughs, one hot oven — and a mooncake that tastes like a festival.

🛒 Ingredients

Ingredient	Amount	Notes
油酥油皮 pastry oil flour	120 g	place flour
油酥皮油油 vegetable oil (for oil dough)	55 ml	gives the flaky layers
热水 hot water	70 ml	binds the water-oil dough
面粉 flour (for water-oil dough)	180 g	the dough that wraps everything
熟面粉 roasted flour (filling)	120 g	toast lightly in a dry pan
白砂糖 sugar (filling)	70 g	just a gentle sweetness
熟白芝麻 toasted sesame (filling)	60 g	the star fragrance
盐 salt (filling)	4 g	rounds out the sweet-savoury balance
花椒粉 Sichuan peppercorn powder (filling)	6 g	the signature numbing tingle
植物油 vegetable oil (filling, to bind)	30 ml	helps the filling hold together

👨‍🍳 Instructions

Step 1 — Make the filling

Toast the flour in a dry pan over low heat for 3 minutes, stirring until fragrant and just golden; let it cool completely.
Stir together the roasted flour, sugar, toasted sesame, salt, and Sichuan peppercorn powder.
Drizzle in the vegetable oil and mix until the filling clumps and can be pressed into a ball when squeezed.

Step 2 — Make the two doughs

Oil dough: mix 120 g flour with 55 ml vegetable oil until it forms a smooth, non-sticky paste.
Water-oil dough: mix 180 g flour with 70 ml hot water (and a pinch of oil) and knead until smooth and slightly elastic, with tiny honeycomb bubbles.
Rest both doughs for about 10 minutes, covered, so they relax.

Step 3 — Assemble the layers

Wrap the oil dough inside the water-oil dough like a large dumpling, then roll it out into a big flat pancake.
Poke a hole in the centre and roll outward into a ring resembling a thick rope.
Cut the ring into equal pieces, about 30-33 g each. Press each into a small wrapper.

Step 4 — Fill and coat with sesame

Place a portion of filling in the centre of each wrapper and seal it closed.
Moisten a bamboo basket (or a plate) slightly with water, add the cakes, and shake gently to coat the tops with sesame seeds.
Space the cakes on a baking sheet and prick two small holes in the top with a knife so steam can escape (this stops the pastry cracking).

Step 5 — Bake

Bake at 180°C (350°F) for about 20 minutes, until golden and flaky.
If you skip the vent holes, the cakes will puff up as steam escapes — that is normal.
Cool slightly before serving; the layers are most dramatic when just warm.

💡 Tips & Substitutions

Problem / Question	Fix / Answer
Can I make it without Sichuan peppercorn?	Yes — but you lose the signature tingle. Reduce to 3 g for a gentle numbing note, or use white pepper as a milder stand-in.
It’s not flaky enough — why?	The oil and water doughs must be rolled and folded patiently; rest the doughs fully so the layers develop. Don’t overwork the water-oil dough.
My cakes cracked in the oven?	You forgot the vent pokes. Always prick two small holes on top so steam escapes instead of tearing the crust.
No bamboo basket for the sesame?	A damp plate works just as well — shake gently to coat. The tradition is the basket, but the technique transfers.

📊 Nutrition

{nutrition}

Dou Dou (豆豆)