Mid-Autumn Fest

Just like all the fellow Aspiring Bakers out there, I spent the past few days on a mooncake making marathon!

I have initially planned to make 2 batches of traditional baked mooncakes and another 2 batches of snowskin ones. Just nice to use up most of the lotus paste I bought.

My first batch of snowskin mooncakes....matcha green tea snowskin mooncakes with red bean paste, and,

....Coffee snowskin mooncakes with tiramisu lotus paste.

The matcha snowskin is made by simply mixing matcha powder with water, as for the coffee flavour, I used 3-in-1 coffee ;)

Last Friday, I did not know what has gotten into me, after sending our elder son to school for his project discussion, I made a last minute decision to swing by Kwong Cheong Thye. My better half didn't mind making a detour as he is always eager to be able to do something for me ;)

I gave myself just a few minutes to shop as I had asked him to park at the roadside to wait for me. It was the first time I stepped into this shop and immediately I regretted not coming here instead of going to the usual baking supply stores to get the first batch of mooncake filling. Besides the necessary ingredients for making mooncakes, the shop offers a wider varieties of mooncake fillings. The best thing is, there are also half-kg packs. I first grabbed the low sugar white lotus paste (the thing that drove me to this shop in the first place), then the durian ones...but when I saw the mango flavour, I dropped the durian paste, and went on to pick up another cranberry paste ;)

Here are the new flavours I made...Cranberry snowskin mooncakes with cranberry paste and Mango snowskin mooncakes. I used only fruit juices to make the snowskin, ie, cranberry juice and mango juice respectively. I didn't add any food colouring, so the colour was a bit on the pale side.

Of the two, we prefer the mango paste, it is softer and has a nice mango flavour to it, whereas the cranberry one is a bit bland, the only plus point is, it comes with bits of cranberries. The pastes doesn't taste overly sweet, they pair of quite well with the snowskin since I used a recipe that calls for less sugar than most recipes that I have came across. However, the mango paste is quite soft compared to the lotus paste and the cranberry ones. Even though I kept it in the fridge after shaping them into small rounds, it was quite difficult to wrap the snowskin dough over it. I used the leftovers for baked mooncakes, it is just slightly easier.

So, all in all, I made 7 batches of mooncakes this year, a whopping 87 moonies! Luckily, they are all mini ones and my boys could eat them the whole day! I shudder at the thought of how many pounds I will be piling on, but I do have this attitude of 'eat first, die later', haha!

 

We will be spending the night eating more mooncakes over pu-er tea (great for busting the extra fat) and enjoying the sweet juicy pomelo (not so easy to get sweet ones) and probably some yams to round up the night.

I wish all of you who celebrate this occasion, a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, 中秋节快乐！




I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (Sept 2011) which I am hosting :

Mini Snowskin Mooncakes

Ingredients:
(makes 12 mini mooncakes)

75g cooked glutinous rice flour
50g icing sugar
25g shortening,
90ml cold water

360g white lotus paste

Method:

1. Sieve together cooked glutinous rice flour and icing sugar into a mixing bowl. Rub the shortening into the flour mixture with fingertips until a crumbly mixture forms. Add cold water to the mixture and knead for a couple of minutes to form a soft dough. Do not over work the dough.
2. Leave dough in the fridge for about 15 mins. (You may skip this step.)
3. At the mean time, divide the lotus paste into 30g portions and shape into balls. (Note: I used a ratio of 40% dough to 60% filling for my 50g mooncake mould.)
4. When ready, divide snowskin dough into 20g pieces. Shape each dough into a ball. For each dough, place it on palm and flatten with fingers to form a round dough about 5cm in diameter. Wrap the dough skin around the filling and shape it into a ball. Seal the seams.
5. Dust mooncake moulds (diameter 4cm, for 50g mooncake) with some cooked glutinous rice flour. Place the wrapped dough into the mould and press the mooncake out. Make sure the surface of the dough in contact with the patterned-face of the mould is smooth. Store mooncakes in fridge for up to 1 week. Leave it under room temperature for about 15mins for the skin to soften before serving.

Variations:
* Matcha flavour - replace cold water with: mix 1 teaspoon of matcha powder with 90ml of hot water. Leave to cool and then chill in fridge for at least 30mins before using.
**Coffee flavour - replace cold water with: mix 1 satchel of 3-in-1 powder powder (about 20g) with 90ml of hot water. Leave to cool and then chill in fridge for at least 30mins before using.
*** Cranberry flavour - replace cold water with same amount of cranberry juice.
*** Mango flavour - replace cold water with same amount of mango juice.