Filipino mung bean hopias are small flaky cakes with sweet mung bean filling. Today, we’ll show you how to prepare these pastries from scratch, filling and dough included! It’s a recipe that requires a little work, but it’ll be totally worth it. So, let’s jump right into it!
Hopia cakes are a beloved Filippino sweet treat, but they actually have Chinese origins. The term hopia derives from the Chinese Hokkien word “ho-pia”, which means “good pastry” and refers to a round pastry cake.
The most common fillings you can find in Filipino hopias include purple yam jam (known as ube halaya), sweet mung bean paste, and savoury wintermelon.
We made a hopia recipe with ube filling and absolutely loved it. So, we decided to give mung bean paste a try next!
Hopia made with mung bean paste is called hopiang munggo in Filipino. This flat cake has a sweet filling made from yellow mung beans and a flaky dough shell. It’s crusty, friable, and full of flavour — so good!
For the sweet bean filling, you’ll need yellow split mung beans, also called munggo or monggo dal, plus sugar, salt, and oil. To make the bean paste, you have to cook the pureed beans on a dry skillet until they turn into a dense paste, similar to cookie dough.
We show you how to do this in our sweet mung bean paste recipe. You can find all the instructions there, plus extra tips!
As for the dough, hopias usually have a flaky shell of pastry dough that resembles a shortcrust dough, but some variations can also come with a cake-like crust.
In our recipe, we used pastry dough, and we’ll show you how to make it from scratch using just flour, oil, and water. No butter needed!
The hopia dough preparation follows the Chinese puff pastry method. First time hearing about it?
Chinese puff pastry is made by repeatedly folding and rolling out alternating layers of a “water dough” and “oil dough” to make a flaky and light crust.
The process is similar to the lamination in puff pastry for croissants, but it doesn’t involve proving the dough as there’s no yeast.
And instead of using butter for the fat layer, you’ll use an “oil dough“, a paste made with flour and oil that has the consistency of peanut butter.
Preparing the dough from scratch will take some time as you have to chill it between rounds of lamination. But your effort will be rewarded: you’ll have ultra flaky hopia cakes with a delicious beany filling!
You’ll love them!