Filipino Mung Bean Hopias are small puff pastries with sweet mung bean filling. Today we will show you how to do it Prepare this pastry from scratch, filling and dough included! It’s a recipe that will take a little work, but it will be totally worth it. So, let’s jump right in!
Hopia cakes are a popular Filipino sweet, but they actually have Chinese origins. The term Hope 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 are purple yam jam (known as ube halaya), sweet mung bean paste, and savory winter melon.
We made a Hopia recipe with Ube filling and absolutely loved it. So we decided to try mung bean paste next!
Hopia made from mung bean paste is called Hopiang Munggo in Filipino. This flatbread has a sweet yellow mung bean filling and a flaky pastry shell. It is crispy, brittle and full of flavor – so good!
For the sweet bean filling you will need yellow divided mung beans, also called munggo or monggo dal, plus sugar, salt and oil. To make the bean paste, you need to cook the mashed beans in a dry pan until they turn into a dense paste, similar to cookie dough.
We show you how to do this in our recipe for sweet mung bean paste. There you will find all the instructions and additional tips!
As for the dough, Hopias usually have a flaky shell of pastry dough this resembles a shortcrust pastry, but some variations can also come with a cake-like crust.
In our recipe we used puff pastry and we show you how to make it from scratch using flour, oil and water. No butter needed!
The Hopia dough preparation follows that Chinese puff pastry method. Heard about it for the first time?
Chinese puff pastry is made by repeatedly folding and rolling out alternating layers of a “water dough” and an “oil dough” to create a fluffy and light crust.
The process is similar to laminating in puff pastry for croissants, but does not require proofing of the dough as there is no yeast.
And instead of using butter for the fat layer, use a “oil dough“, a paste of flour and oil that has the consistency of peanut butter.
Preparing the dough from scratch takes some time because you need to chill it between rounds of lamination. But your effort will be rewarded: you have to ultra flaky Hopia cakes with delicious bean filling!
You will love them!