Traditional mooncakes

Ever since I started my baking journey six years ago, I did my first snowskin mooncakes then as it was the easiest mooncakes to come up with. Though I always wanted to try out the traditional mooncakes, it somehow looks quite daunting for me. I've been procrastinating for a good six years. I just didn't have the courage to do it. This year would have been the same or no mooncakes at all.

Until last month, my aunt was inviting us to participate in the mid-autumn celebration at the old folks home that we have doing some volunteer work. Unfortunately I had pre-arrangement on the day of event and were not able to attend. Somehow the conversation led to doing my bits by contributing homemade mooncakes.

With my limited experience, I could only offer to make snowskin mooncakes and we even did trials for that. However, we were then told that the old folks would prefer the traditional type and also for logistical reasons, the snowskin mooncakes may not keep well in room temperature especially if the old folks did not consume them within the day. And so I told my aunt I was not able to contribute any homemade traditional mooncakes as I had never did them before, and we may have to buy the traditional mooncakes from the store for the event.

Feeling unsettled, I started to look out for easy traditional mooncakes recipes and read up a few. I thought maybe I should give it a try this time, and went ahead to do a trial bake. It was a long 3-days wait for the mooncakes to 回油, tasted it and ohmy, it's a success!

It took me a total of 2 days rolling the lotus paste, another 1 over day to mould and bake with my aunt, and another day for packing them. Hehe... I almost forgotten that my lil boy helped me with measuring the dough for wrapping as well! 180 pieces of presentable mini mooncakes, couple of QA-failed mooncakes, another 10+ ok pieces to be given away to family, and some piggies purely for me to play with the dough!

I'm glad that I could do my little bit for the old folks, and without them, I would not have the push factor to have my hands on traditional mooncakes. To those who are still procrastinating, please give it a try, it's not that daunting afterall!

Traditional mooncakes
(Recipe adapted from Happy Home Baking)

Ingredients/ Method
(makes 10 mini mooncakes)

Dough
100g plain flour
70g golden syrup
2ml alkaline water
25ml peanut oil or canola oil

Filling
300g low sugar white lotus paste
30g melon seeds, toasted

Egg wash
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp water

1. Mix lotus paste with toasted melon seeds. Divide the fillings into 30g portions and shape into balls. Set aside. 
2. Place golden syrup in a bowl. Add in alkaline water, stir to combine. Add in oil, mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, put in plain flour and create a well in the centre. Add in golden syrup mixture and mix with a spatula to form a soft dough. 
4. Gently knead the dough till smooth (takes about 1 - 2 mins). Shape it into a smooth round dough.
5. Wrap dough with cling wrap and leave in fridge to rest for at least 2 hours or overnight. 
6. Dust work surface with some flour and give the dough a few light kneading to smooth it. 
7. Divide dough into 20g and shape each dough into a ball. 
8. Dust hand and rolling pin with flour and flatten each dough into a small disc. Wrap it around the filling and shape it into a ball. 
9. Lightly dust the mooncake mould with some flour and place the wrapped dough into it. Using the mooncake plunger/ mould, press and gently remove the mooncake. Place the mooncakes on lined baking tray. 
10. Spray some water on the mooncakes to prevent them from cracking during baking. 
11. Bake at pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for 10 mins. Remove from oven and leave to cool for 15 mins. 
12. Egg wash the mooncake top. Return to oven and continue to bake for another 12 - 15 mins or until golden brown. 
13. Leave mooncakes to cool completely and store in air-tight container. Wait for 3 - 4 days for mooncake to 回油 (for skin to soften) before serving. 

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (August 2014 Event: Flour) - organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from Domestic Goddess Wannabe.

Wishing Everyone ... Happy Mid-Autumn, and Happy Reunion! 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2012

 

 

Wishing all a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2012!

祝大家花好月圆庆中秋, 举家团圆赏明月!

  

Before the festive, I was thinking of making my own spiral yam mooncakes or the traditional mooncakes since I'd tried snowskin for the last few years. I wanted to do something different to give my family a treat and not the "same old thing" again this year. As the date drew nearer, and I was so caught up with work, I had to think of alternative (read: easier and fuss-free) mooncake recipes as both the recipes seem to be a little too tight for me. Anyway I already bought 1-kg packet of white lotus paste (low sugar) and it was sitting in the fridge before I could decide what type of mooncake or recipe to follow. I chanced upon e's joie walnut mooncakes recipe which was originally adapted from Baking Mum. Quite decided to bake this until I fell sick this week and was feeling quite lethargic and restless to do anything. I had almost 2 full days of rest at home, and finally pushed myself a little to roll out some walnut mooncakes and some piggy mooncakes. Aren't these little piggies look cute (though seem slightly disfigured!)?

Walnut mooncakes
(I used 1.5x of the recipe to make 41 mooncakes)

(A) 50g icing sugar

50g shortening

220g salted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp ammonium (can be omitted)

(B) 1 egg

(C) 380g plain flour

25g custard powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Filling
1kg white lotus paste (low sugar)

Others
200g walnuts (for decoration)
2 egg yolks + 2 tsp water (egg wash)

1. Cream (A) together till slightly pale and well mixed.

2. Gradually add in egg and mix well.

3. Add sifted (C) into mixture and form a dough. Do not knead or mix for too long.

4. Leave the dough in a plastic bag or cling wrap and leave in the fridge overnight or for a few days.

5. Weigh out the 20g skin and 25g filling.

6. Wrap lotus paste in the skin and decorate with walnuts.

7. Apply egg wash and bake at 175 deg C for 10 mins.

8. Bring out and leave to cool for 10 mins.

9. Apply egg wash again and bake for another 15 mins.

Note:
I added about 30g melon seeds (toasted at 180 deg C for 10 mins and left to cool) to 500g of lotus paste.
I made the piggy mooncakes following Anncoo's tutorial here.
 

Mooncake or not?

These days the monthly Aspiring Bakers event is one that gave me the little push to continue baking 'something'. So far, the theme of each month had been very interesting and it really serve as a good on-line encyclopedia for all who loves baking. Kudos to Small Small Baker who initiated this splendid AB, and to all hosts who spent so much time and effort to compile all entries every month!

Being the 8th month of the lunar calendar, naturally it's Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011) and hosted by Happy Home Baking. Of course, I'm submitting this post for this month's AB event. BUT....

Back to the title of this post.... I'm not very convinced that mine is a mooncake, though what I've "researched" from wikipedia skewed towards the answer "yes". What is a mooncake? Crust - can be chewy, flaky or tender, glutinuous rice, jelly. Filling - can be lotus seed paste, five kernels, durian, chocolate, etc. Shape - can be round, rectangular, piglet, cute cartoon characters, etc. Not wanting to do the snowskin mooncakes which I did previous years, and have not got the time to try baking traditional mooncakes, I did mine using 老婆餅 (wife's biscuit) recipe and shaped using the mooncake moulds/plunger that I just bought from Elyn of ShopnBake. The previous set of mould/plunger was given to my sis-in-law, and I only ordered this new set and collected on Sunday. You'll see how I always do my things at the last minute (oh no...)!

You will decide whether this is a Mooncake or not?

Anyway, Wishing all 中秋節快樂 or Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2011!

Durian snowskin moonies

Following my earlier post on mooncakes, I did manage to try out some durian mooncakes and brought them to my aunty wendy's house for the mid-autumn celebration. Actually this is the 1st time we are celebrating the festival with my relatives. We had very sumptuous dinner cooked by my aunt's MIL, very delicious spread!

The snowskin is using the same recipe with no durian essence added, and the filling is 100% pure durians. I'd got 1 box of 'mao san wang' and 3 boxes of 'segamat' from Fairprice @ AMKHub, and the quality is good!! To get a good bargain, go to the supermarket at around 9pm as they usually try to clear everything before the store closed for the day.

I have not tried durian snowskin mooncakes before, so i'm not quite sure how it should taste like? Do we have to add cream, gelatine, or anything to the filling?? Does anyone know?

Snowskin mooncakes

I did these mooncakes last Saturday and was happy that I managed to use up all the pastes i bought. In total, I had made 71 mooncakes within a day and includes packing them in boxes as gift for my relatives, also brought some to my colleagues on Tuesday. I started preparing in the late morning and finishing with the cleaning up at 2+am. It may look unnecessary to do all these and get it from the store, but it's always the passion that pushes me ahead. I do feel i'm missing something if i do not bake or making something or blog, these days.

There are white lotus, pandan and green tea, and all these are supposedly to be low-sugar. Why supposedly? Cos they aren't that low-sugar, my relatives and I find them to be on the sweet side still. Wonder what it would taste like if i had bought the normal paste? However, if these mooncakes are chilled enough, the sweetness seems to be alright. Perhaps i need to prepare my own paste the next year??

These snowskin mooncakes are using the same recipe as what i did last year. However, i did try to make a variety of snowskin flavours like oreo, blueberry, green tea, pandan, and of course the original. There are no artifical flavourings added, just au-naturel, hence there's only very slight hint of flavour in them. Should i contemplate with artifical flavourings, the next round?

Still few more days to Mid-Autumn festival, would i be making more mooncakes?

More mooncakes

There are a few variety of mooncakes that i wanted to make, those baked ones, cheesecake snowskin mooncakes, chocolate snowskin mooncakes, durian snowskin mooncakes..... but alas i only have so little time to do either of them. Since i have some left-over ingredients from my earlier moonies, i decided to finish up all of them. There's also a pack of red bean paste that i bought a few months ago, supposedly to bake this, but i never had the chance/ courage to try out bread-making. For bread-making, it seems you need alot of time for proofing, which i don't have the luxury since i usually do my baking almost in the 'wee' hours. I also made some custard filling, which i initially thought would be quite effortless to prepare. Things are easy until sieveing the custard, ohmigod, i started to regret preparing it.

Ingredients/ Method for custard filling:

2 egg yolks

150g caster sugar

40g superfine flour

40g corn flour

30g custard powder

100ml coconut milk

150ml milk

50g butter

1. Mix all ingredients except butter till well combined.

2. Stir in butter.

3. Steam for 15 mins or till cooked.

4. Sieve the custard paste and leave to cool.

5. Scale custard paste at 15g each.

I had 2 types of fillings, custard with white lotus paste, and custard with red bean paste. Hands-up for the low sugar white lotus paste. The red bean paste is a tad too sweet.

The snowskin is using the same as my previous bake. However, i tried added a few drops of pandan paste and strawberry paste this time round to give me more 'colorful' moonies. Yields 24 mini mooncakes, which i shared with my family members.

Snowskin Mooncake

My baking experiment is getting more interesting and little bit varied. Have you ever wondered that sometimes those goodies that you thought you will never know how to do it, is actually so simple. Of course, all these cannot be accomplished without the generous sharing of good and easy to follow recipes by fellow bloggers. It's kinda weird that i can spend almost everyday blogging or simply catching up blogs of other homebakers, to T, he just lamented that "i don't understand why you want to spend so much time on this, i find it a waste of time!" I suppose you must be in it, to understand this world of blogging, and baking (~0~)

The 'craze' now is my office is making snowskin mooncakes, and everyone ('exaggerated', only the usual group bakers) seems to be trying it out, sharing different recipes found from the world-wide-web, and our baking experiences and experiments. Since this is my 'virgin' moonies, i did a fare bit of surfing to sift out the recipes, and at the same time, to 'hear' from other bloggers' experience with making mooncakes. This was narrowed to this from Held by Love, Bake from Scratch, who like me - is the first time trying out mooncake, and bought the mooncake moulds from Elyn from e's joie.

These moonies were the 1st few that i did, see the skin

is quite uneven and ugly.

Ingredients/ Method:

Snowskin

100g koh fun (commercial fried glutinous rice flour)

70g icing sugar

30g shortening

120g cold water

1. Sift koh fun and icing sugar.

2. Rub in shortening into the flour mixture.
3. Slowly add in the cold water, until soft dough forms.
4. Weigh 20g dough each, and 30g filling each, and set aside.
5. Flatten the dough and put the filling in the centre and wrap.
6. Press into mould.

*Note: I put the dough in between a plastic bag and flatten with rolling pin. The wrapping is also done using the plastic bag. This method was 'invented' as the dough keep sticking to my hand, and i don't wish to use more flour to coat the mooncake. It made handling of the mooncake very easy!

Although these mooncakes are never near perfect nor in comparison with commercial ones, personally i like it just because it is home-made with love...kekekeke. This is another 'spirit' of my baking endeavours!