Mooncakes

 

Baked mini red bean mooncakes

I'm not going to bother going into details about the origin of the mooncake festival and all that - I'm just going to assume that most people looking for a mooncake recipe already know some of the background and everyone else can google it. But I will tell you that I absolutely love mooncakes, especially the ones from home. There's so much variety (regular, ping pei, jelly, etc) and so many awesome flavours (pandan, coffee, durian, mixed nuts, etc)! Yum! I haven't been able to get my hands on the stuff from home and I don't really like the taste of the ones in US so I got a book and some plastic moulds the last time I went back and tested them out last year during the festival. I have to say that they're actually really easy to make if done in stages or if you cheat like I did :) Broken down, a mooncake is basically the skin (including a basic sugar syrup) and the filling.



I got the recipes from a mooncake book with recipes by Khoo See Yew.

The Skin
Before making the skin, a sugar syrup is required. I know it is possible to skip it but it really does make a difference!

 

My syrup is a little darker than usual but it still works and can be kept for up to a year!

Basic Sugar Syrup

600g castor sugar
400g water
1 whole lime, sliced
1/2 whole lemon, sliced
1 tbsp maltose
1/2 tsp salt


Bring the sugar, water, lime and lemon to a boil in a pot. Do not stir. Add in the maltose and cook until it turns brown on low heat. It should take about 1 1/2 - 2 hours and you should stir it occasionally. Test it by dropping a drop of the thickened syrup into a cup of water. If it does not spread, it is ready. Once ready, add in the salt, stir well and turn off the flame. Leave to cool.

* Properly stored, the syrup is good for up to a year.
* Depending on how long it is cooked, this recipe yields about enough syrup for 2 - 3 batches of pastry skin.
* You don't have to fish out the lime/lemon pieces but I did since the citrus taste was pretty strong.
* If you accidentally toss in the salt with all the other ingredients (like I did), don't worry. Doesn't seem to affect it at all.


Pastry Skin
Makes 8 large mooncakes


300g low protein flour*
250g sugar syrup
70gm peanut oil
1/2 tbsp alkaline water (lye water/kan sui/air abu)
1/8 piece lime juice of a whole lime


Mix the sugar syrup, peanut oil, alkaline water and lime juice. Slowly add in the flour to make a dough. Leave to rest for about 3 - 4 hours.

* Regular flour works just as well.

 

L: Wet mixture. C: Adding flour. R: Final product.

Filling
Urm, so I basically cheated and got red bean paste from a can. It makes life so much easier :) But I'll put up the recipe from the book anyway. Although I can't vouch for the red bean paste, I did make the lotus paste from scratch since I couldn't find it in a can anywhere. The recipes make large portions though.


Red Bean Paste

600g red beans
450g sugar
300g peanut oil
100g maltose
3 tbsp rose sugar maltosa
15g flour
20g wheat starch


Clean red beans, cook in adequate water until tender then blend into a paste. Pour paste into a cloth to squeeze out some water.

Heat up some oil in a wok, add in red bean paste and stir-fry until almost dry. Add in sugar and rose sugar and continue to stir-fry.

Mix the flour and wheat flour with 2 tbsp oil and pour in the remaining oil in small batches while continuously stirring. Lastly, Add in maltose and flour mixture. Keep stirring on low heat until the paste does not stick to the wok.

 

L: Store bought red bean paste and pastry. C: Lotus seeds that have been soaked. R: Early stages of frying up lotus paste.

Lotus Paste 

600g lotus seed

450g sugar

450g peanut oil

70g maltose

25g wheat starch

1 tbsp alkaline water

melon seeds (optional)

Wash and drain lotus seed. Add 1 tbsp alkaline water and soak for about 10 mins. Drain and boil for 15 - 30 mins until soft. Remove skins and stems (if applicable) and blend into a paste. 

Heat some oil in a wok, add in sugar and fry on medium heat until it turns to a light brown colour. Turn heat to low and add in lotus paste. Fry for a while, pouring in the remaining oil in several batches, until the paste is almost dry. Lastly, add the maltose and wheat starch, stirring until it turns brown and does not stick to the wok. Add melon seeds (if using) to the lotus paste and let cool.

* I only used about 1/2 the amount of sugar initially then added more later on to adjust the sweetness. 

* Soaking the lotus seeds in alkaline water is not neccessary but it does speed up the process. 

* It is really important that the pastes are fairly dry (at the stage where it does not stick to the wok) because a wet paste will result in a longer baking time, cause the pastry skin to be sticky and moist once it is baked and will not keep for very long. 

Assembling the mooncake! 

The book assumes that a traditional wooden mooncake mould will be used. Traditional hand carved wooden moulds are generally deeper while the plastic ones are fairly shallow. The difference between a wooden mould and a plastic mould is important since the difference in depth will affect the weight and size of the mooncake. 

Try filling the mould with just the pastry skin then weigh it to see what capacity your mould holds. A general rule of thumb for making mooncakes of different sizes is that 1/3 of the total weight should be the pastry skin and the other 2/3 the filling. If you are adding salted egg yolks and what not, you need to factor the weight of the additions into the 2/3. For a big mooncake, it should turn out to be about 30g - 40g for the pastry and 120g - 140g for the filling. A salted egg yolk is about 10g - 15g so make adjustments accordingly. For a small mooncake, the skin should be about 15g - 20g and the filling about 30g - 40g. 

According to the book, the pastry skin recipe above will make 8 large mooncakes so if you're using a wooden mould, split the dough into 40g balls and divide the filling into 130g balls.

Lightly flour hands and start by flattening out a piece of pastry (doing this between two sheets of plastic or parchment paper makes it easier) into a 2 - 3 inch circle. Place a ball of filling in the middle and fold edges until the filling is completely covered. Lightly flour the ball and press into a mould seam side up (rolling it around in your hands will get rid of the seams). To knock it out, turn mould upside down at an angle and tap it. It should come out easily with a plastic mould but a wooden one will need to be hit harder from different angles.

Spread some water onto the mooncakes and bake in the oven at 180 C or 350 F for about 10 mins or until slightly brown*. Remove and brush with egg wash and bake again at same temp for about 10 mins or until golden brown. Leave to cool.

* I found that my mooncakes lost their defined edges when I brushed them with water so I suggest that you skip the water part and just bake it sans any type of glaze for 10 mins, remove, brush with egg glaze and bake for another 10 mins or until golden brown.

Egg glaze

2 egg yolks
1 whole egg

Beat yolks and whole egg together.

The mooncakes tend to taste better after 2 - 3 days of settling and in general, should last for up to a month if kept properly.