Chinese Crullers/Yau Char Kwai Recipes

Our group of Malaysian ladies attempted making Yau Char Kwai this month. We tried out two recipes and one turn out really well and one failed miserably. Not sure what went wrong with the failed recipe as we follow the ingredients and instructions to the T. Anyhow, we were glad Agnes Chang recipe turns out so well with less work and proofing time compare to the other one. The YCK were light with hollow texture on the inside. So the next time if we are going to make this again we will just stick to this recipe.

For more information about the Chinese Crullers/Yau Char Kwai please read here. As for more information on Ammonia Powder please refer to here. For me information for Alum please refer here .

Ingredients A
(Adapted from Agnes Chang’s Hawker’s Delights with minor changes)

1 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp lukewarm water

Ingredients B

250 ml water
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp Ammonia powder (chow fun)
½ tsp of Alum (pak fun)

Ingredient C

300 grm bread flour (we used 320 grm)
1 tsp salt

(I put both successful and failed YCK together for comparison. Just look at the difference in size)

1. Mix all the ingredients A and set it aside for 10 – 15 minutes until it get foamy.
2. Mix ingredients B. Sift ingredient C into a mixing bowl. Add in mixture of A and B into the flour. Used a wooden spoon, mix the dough until well combined. Knead it for 5 minutes and if the dough is too sticky to work with add a little bit more flour.
3. Cover with a plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 2 hours.

4. Turn the dough out to the well floured work surface. Sprinkle some flour on the dough and roll the dough out into a long rectangle. Cut into 1” strips. Place two strips, one on top of each. Let it rest for another 5 minutes.
5. In the meantime, prepare oil for deep frying.

6. Press lightly on the two strips of dough with a chopstick. Holds both ends of the dough and stretch the strips a little and lower into hot oil. Deep fry, turning constantly until each cruller turns puffy and golden brown.

Note: The dough is pretty sticky to work with so make sure your work surface, hands and utensils are well coated with flour.