It's mooncake season! Not sure about you, but for me that means craving mooncakes almost every day, regardless of their calorie count. Mooncakes are one of the finest pastries to ever exist.
A key part of Mid-Autumn Festival isn't just devouring mooncakes, it is also giving out mooncakes to your loved ones. The practice represents familial bonds and it has clearly stood the test of time.
How to make this custom even more special? DIY it! It's a fun project to commit to, not to mention you also get to save some cash.
There are two types of mooncakes you can DIY at home, the traditional mooncakes and snowskin mooncakes. Overall, the snowskin mooncakes are easier and can be made faster, while the traditional mooncakes are more labour intensive. Either way, you'll be needing a mooncake mold stamp.
Snowskin Mooncakes
This no-bake recipe is possibly one of the easiest possible mooncake recipes you'll ever find. It's a modern take on mooncakes and with a relatively short ingredients list, it's also perfect to make with kids!
Ingredients (for mooncake skin):
- 80g glutinous rice flour
- 80g rice flour
- 65g icing sugar
- 40g wheat starch
- 225ml milk (and 75ml of strawberry flavored milk)
- 40ml vegetable oil
Ingredients (for custard filling):
- 130g unsalted butter
- 150g icing sugar
- 5 large eggs
- 100g milk powder
- 50g wheat starch
Directions (for mooncake skin):
- Sieve the icing sugar, glutinous rice flour, rice flour, wheat starch into a stainless steel bowl.
- Add the vegetable oil and milk into the flour and sugar mixture. Form a batter by mixing it with a whisk or electric mixer.
- Once it is well combined, steam the batter over medium heat for twenty minutes or until it is fully cooked. You'll notice that it's cooked when you stick a wooden chopstick into the dough and it comes out clean.
- After the dough cools down, place it on a piece of plastic sheet or cling wrap. Knead it for a minute or until it is smooth and shiny. Use a pair of gloves for kneading as the dough is very sticky!
- Wrap the dough with cling wrap and chill it for thirty minutes or longer before proceeding to the next step.
Directions (for custard filling):
- Sieve icing sugar into softened butter that's at room temperature. Softened butter produces lighter buttercream. Cream sugar and butter together with an electric whisk until mixture is nice and fluffy and its color turns a pale yellow.
- Add an egg to the mixture and mix until combined before adding the remaining eggs, one after another.
- Add the milk powder and wheat starch. Mix until well combined.
- Steam the custard mixture for five minutes, then open the lid and scrape the sides of the bowl with a metal spoon and stir to ensure even cooking.
- Cover and steam for another three to five minutes, or until the custard starts to thicken. Once the custard begins to thicken, stir until it is thick enough that the custard is no longer runny, can be folded over and does not stick to the bowl and the spatula.
- Remove the custard and cover with cling film. Set aside.
Assembling:
- Measure out equal portions of the dough and the filling.
- Placing the dough in between two pieces of cling wrap, roll it out with a rolling pin.
- Remove cling wrap and place the custard on the dough.
- Wrap custard with dough and roll into a ball.
- Dust the dough ball and mooncake mold with glutinous rice flour to ensure that the mooncake doesn't stick. Dust off excess rice flour.
- Place the mooncake mold onto the dough and plunge the piston down a few times to form the mooncake. Remove the mold carefully.
- Chill the mooncake in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving.
If you're still not sure how it works, you can refer to the video below for a clearer explanation:
Traditional Lotus Paste Mooncake With Salted Egg
This recipe is by Taste Asian Food and is dubbed as an "easier" version of the more tedious original recipe. Be warned, it's still quite labour intensive but go hard or go home right?
Ingredients (for the dough):
- 100g cake flour
- 60g golden syrup
- 1/4 tsp lye water (kansui)
- 24g vegetable oil
Ingredients (for the filling):
- 10 salted egg yolks
- 220g store-bought lotus paste
- Egg wash
Directions (for dough):
- Mix golden syrup, lye water, and vegetable oil in a mixing bowl.
- Sieve the flour into the mixture and combine ingredients.
- Place the dough on a piece of cling wrap. Rest the dough for thirty minutes in the refrigerator.
Directions (for filling):
- Wash the salted egg yolk with water to remove the white sticking to the yolk. Pat dry.
- Wrap the yolk with the lotus paste. They should weigh 35g together.
- Then roll it into a ball and set aside.
Wrapping:
- Divide dough into 17g each. Roll out the pastry in between two plastic sheets or cling wraps.
- Remove the cling film on top, place lotus paste filling in the middle and fold the pastry over the filling.
- Pinch away the excess pastry where the pastry is double folded to ensure consistent thickness.
- Roll the mooncake with your palms to form a ball.
Baking:
- Roll the mooncake on a surface dusted with flour.
- Plunge the piston of the mold to the flour, and shake off any excess.
- Place the dough on a baking tray.
- Place the mooncake mold on the dough and plunge the piston downward to shape the dough.
- Bake it at the middle rack, 175°C top and bottom temperature for five minutes, or until the surface starts to firm up.
- Remove the mooncake from the oven and brush the surface of the mooncake with some egg wash.
- Bake for another ten minutes or until golden brown.
- Remove the cake from the oven to cool at room temperature.
- Transfer the mooncake to an airtight container and keep for three days before serving.
I know that recipe was kinda confusing so if you need some help, feel free to check out this step-by-step video:
Hopefully the videos were helpful!
We all know that it's much easier to purchase mooncakes than it is to spend hours in the kitchen. But since the Mid-Autumn Festival is all about family, why not get into the kitchen with yours and celebrate what the festival is truly about?