Mooncake making is fun and satisfying. Once you gather all the ingredients that you need, you will feel it's not that difficult after all. Just need some patience to weigh all the ingredients in order to get uniform sizes, gently wrap up all the ingredients and carefully stamp with the mould, then you are ready to send into the oven to bake.
Traditional mooncake is the classic mooncake that we had been eating since young. And the fillings were basically either lotus paste or red bean paste that comes with or without salted egg yolk.
As I only have 50g mooncake mould, so I am going to try making mini traditional mooncake this year. Love the prints and outcome!
Ingredients : (makes 25 pcs mini size x 50g each)
200g Golden Syrup
50g Peanut Oil
275g Super Fine Flour / Cake Flour / Plain Flour
1/8 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Alkaline Water (Kan Sui)
750g Lotus Seed Paste
6 pcs Whole Salted Egg Yolk (cut into quater)
1 tbsp Chinese Shao Xing Wine
1 egg yolk for egg wash
You need: a 50g mooncake plunger mould.
Method:
1. Mix golden syrup, baking soda, alkaline water and oil till well combine. Set aside for 4 hours.
2. Meanwhile, dip salted egg yolk with Shao xing wine. Bake them at 100C for 8 mins. Set aside to cool down before cutting them into quarter.
3. Weigh and divide lotus seed paste into 30g each. Then wrap lotus seed paste with salted egg yolk. Roll into a round ball. Set aside and cover in cling wrap or tupperware to prevent drying.
4. Add in flour to syrup mixture (in step 1 above) and mix well to form a soft dough. Set aside for 1/2 hour in the fridge.
(Originally the dough will be very soft to handle. Putting in fridge will harden it and easier to wrap)
5. Divide dough into 20g each. Gently roll to flatten the mooncake pastry and wrap the dough around the lotus paste filling. ( I prefer to roll to achieve an even skin thickness). Roll it into ball and dust with some flour.
6. Place mooncake dough on the baking tray lined with non stick baking paper. Press firmly into mould then slowly unmould.
7. Bake at preheated oven 170C for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and rest mooncakes to cool for about 15 minutes. Brush them with egg wash. Start by brushing the all-round sides, then only the top surface. Thin coating will do. Continue to bake the mooncakes again for another 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Leave mooncakes to cool down completely before storing into an airtight container. This mooncake can be eaten immediately after baked or wait for about 3 days for the mooncake skin to soften (回油) before consuming.
(above : pic of mooncakes just taken out from oven)
Tips:
1. Freshly baked mooncake, the skin will be hard. It is best and recommended to keep aside for 3 days for the mooncake skin to turn oily (回油) and the skin will be soft. Try not to lay baking paper or dolly paper underneath the mooncakes as the oil will be absorbed by the paper rather than the mooncakes itself.
2. Egg wash using soft brush and not silicone type. Brush evenly on all sides and thin layer is sufficient. Do not leave a clump of egg yolk and flood the deeper imprint on the surface. This will cause the egg to expand when baking, easily burnt with darker shades on the surface and causing unclear prints.
Happy Baking.
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