Snowskin mooncake with Champagne Chocolate Truffle

"oh no! Not again?" You must have just said that, right? Sorry, i just said that the Mixed Nuts was my last mooncake of the year and yet i still made these yesterday. Well, that's because i still have some lotus paste left, so i do not want to waste them. Furthermore, i did not really make any snowskin, so i just made this last batch (really!) of mooncake for this year. These are really yummy, and now i regretted that why i didn't make these as gifts! Not that my other mooncakes are not nice, but these are just something different. I really like the aroma of the champagne truffle. Yum!!

Mixed Nuts Mooncakes - My last batch of moonies for Yr 2008

Yes! It's finally it's over! I am feeling relieved but with abit of sadness. Relieve is because i have been making mooncakes for the past one month, therefore kind of sick and tired of it. As I had never repeatedly bake the same kind of things before. Sad is because i kind of miss it already, yes, i am not joking. Perhaps is because this is my first mooncake making experience and i have so much positive feedbacks about them that makes me very happy and satisfied. Furthermore, mooncake is not like any other bakes, but it's part of our chinese culture. So not only it's very meaningful to me, i feel very proud that i can make them too.

(For my own records)

My first batch of mooncakes were for my granny and relatives in Malaysia. I made as per my mum's request - not too sweet and not too oily for the lotus paste, because my relatives are all very health concious. Therefore i reduced the oil and sugar amount, but this made the paste on the dry side. My mum did complaint that it was slightly dry, but at least it was a "healthier version" that my relative will appreciate. (Morale of the story, healthy food are not nice! LOL..)

My second batch were for my husband's colleagues and bosses. This batch were made using white lotus paste. All his colleagues like it and didn't believe that they were made by me, because they looked and taste good. I was very happy, because that was a compliment to me.

My last batch of mooncakes were for my in laws and best friends. Sad to say my skill is still not good, the skin were a flop, but the paste was the most perfect of all. For the skin, because i had forgotten to add in the melon seed and i only added them in the end. Therefore caused my mooncakes to be "overweighted" (too much filling for the small mould to handle), resulted very distorted mooncakes (partly also because i had made the skin too thin). As for the paste, it was the most perfect of all because they were very soft, everybody loves the texture. And both my friends commented that they were better than those store bought ones.

Finally the mixed nut mooncakes, that was an unexpected production. I had never planned to make any mixed nuts before, because i don't like it. I still remember the first time i tasted it was during my childhood time. And i still remember i threw out after the first bite, because the taste was weird and "horrible" (to me) . But my mother-in-law said that her favourite mooncakes are the mixed nuts, so i added it into my list just for her. But i am glad that i made them, because again, i have got good feedback on them. My friend told me that, initially her mum only have a small slice for fear that they were too sweet, but after the first bite she finished the whole mooncake and commented that they were better than the store bought ones as the sweetness was just right. As for myself, i still don't fancy this type of mooncake, however, i can accept my mixed nuts and don't mind eating them.

As i am still very new to baking, therefore this mooncake making experience was a tough one for me. Because i was learning through recipes, therefore lots of trials and errors here and there. But overall, i am still very glad that i learn how to make it, because it is something very meaningful to me. I will definitely make them again next year, because homemade mooncakes are the best because they are free from preservatives and most importantly labour of love. And i had never enjoy mooncake so much in my life until i tasted my own mooncake. Finally, i should thank my husband who asked me to make them, otherwise i am not sure if i will ever bother to learn how to make them.

Shanghai Walnut Mooncakes & Chocolate Mooncakes 上海核桃月饼 和 巧克力月饼

I have been baking mooncakes so many rounds until i am really tired and sick of them even before Mid Autumn Festival. I do enjoy making mooncakes but not in mass production. Because this is my first time making mooncake, so i am quite slow in wrapping the skin and the filling. It took me hours to make 20 mini mooncakes. I am not exaggerating, if i am not wrong i spent 4 hours in the kitchen just to make the 20 minis. Luckily i am not making them for sale, otherwise i will go crazy inside the kitchen. But partly also because i wanted to make the skin as thin as possible, which explained why it was so time consuming for me. Because the thinner the skin, the more difficult it is to wrapped the filling. But than again, still have to blame on my skill, i am just not good in wrapping them.

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I was baking another round of mooncakes yesterday (the 3rd batch of mass production since last week, 1st batch for my Granny (20pcs minis + 80pcs Horlick cookies), 2nd batch for his colleagues (20pcs minis)). This batch of mooncakes were also meant for his colleagues. I baked Walnut Mooncakes - 18pcs and Chocolate Mooncakes (for kids) - 16pcs. Walnut mooncakes were adapted from various sources and the Chocolate Mooncake were adapted from Aunty Yochana's blog.

(Pardon my calculations of mooncakes here, so that i will remember how much to bake next time, that is if i am still baking them again. haha)

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The Chocolate mooncake dough is like a cookie dough with cocoa powder, the filling was lotus paste mixed with chocolate chips and almond nibs. It's very fragrant, but does not really taste like mooncake. My hubby commented that the filling taste like "Dou Sar" (Red Bean Paste). I used Cartoon moulds for the chocolate mooncakes, but because of the colour of the dough, the cartoon characters didn't turn out so well. Anyway, i just hope that both adults and kids will enjoy them.

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Baked Mini Traditional Mooncakes - Part 3 传统小月饼

These batch of Baked Traditional Mooncakes are meant for my hubby's colleagues. But this time i have increased the oven temperature, which i had forgotten the last time. I baked for 10min at 200degree, than rest than baked for another 10min at 180degree, seeing that it's not brown enough, i baked for a further 5min. I dare not extend any longer because the last time i tried baking for further 8min, my mooncakes "exploded" (should have taken a picture of that).
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Eventhough this may be the 3rd time (since Aug) that i am baking mooncakes, I still have not improved much. Because i still feels that the mooncakes looks under baked.. or could it be due to the colour? But i am very happy with the thickness of the skin as compared to my very first baked mooncake , at least these are much thinner. However, my wrapping skin is still very bad, because some parts of the mooncake are still uneven in thinkness.

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Snowskin Custard Mooncake - 冰皮奶黄月饼

Find the snowskin too naked, so dusk with cocoa powder. Just for fun. Haha..

Custard Filling
Lotus Paste wrapped Custard filling

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This batch of snowskin mooncakes is using a different recipe. This recipe requires steaming, which is more tedious and time consuming as compared to all the previous snowskin recipes that i have tried. The texture is not bad, it's soft and slightly chewy and it don't have the floury taste. But it's very sticky and needs to put lots of flour to handle as compared to the "non cooked" recipe. What i like about this recipe is the non floury taste. But what puts me off is that this requires steaming of the dough. In other words, you still need to wait for them to be cool before using (which will takes quite a while). But overall, i still prefer this to other recipe because of the taste and texture. Personally I like this recipe by Florence (for the snowskin)! Thanks Florence for sharing!

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Because i was just trying out the recipe, so i only used 50% of the original recipe. And i have also made some minor adjustment to the portions of the ingredients.

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Snowskin

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Ingredients:

45g glutinous rice flour

35g wheat starch

1 1/2 tsp rice flour

4 tsp castor sugar

50ml boiling water

70ml skim milk or milk (original recipe 62.5ml)

20ml coconut milk (original recipe 30ml)

1/2 tsp corn oil

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Method:

1) Dissolve sugar in the boiling water and leave aside to cool.

2) Sieve the flour mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add in the milk, coconut milk and lastly the cooled syrup. Mix till you get a smooth batter, otherwise strain the mixture till smooth.

3) Pour this batter into a greased bowl and steam on high heat for 25 minutes.

4) When the dough is cooked, leave it to cool for a while and while still warm knead in the corn oil till you get a smooth dough.

5) Wrap the dough up with glad wrap and chill it in the refrigerator overnight or till the dough is very cold before using it.

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Note:

1) As i didn't want to wait, so i just chilled the dough overnight and only use it the next day.

2) I use 25g dough and 30g filling for this mooncake.

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Custard Filling

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Ingredients

1 large egg yolk

20g cake flour

20g corn flour

20g custard powder

90g caster sugar

36g coconut milk

86g fresh milk

20g butter, melted

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Method

1) Combine all ingredients is a bowl (that can be used for steaming), mix till well combined than add in the melted butter.

2) Place the mixture into the wok/steamer and steam for 20min. Open and stir the mixture after the first 10min.

3) Remove from steamer and cool filling before using.

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Source for custard filling: Y3K Mooncake Magazine

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Note:

1) The quantity for the snowskin recipe does not match the custard filling. Because both are a combination from different sources. And my intention was to try out the taste and texture only, therefore i did not finish using both the ingredients. And hence do not know how much of moonies can they yield. You can do an estimation yourself by adding up the ingredients and divide by the amount of dough and filling required by your mould and judge accordingly.

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2) This custard recipe is much better than the one i made previously. This is much softer and nicer. However, this recipe may not be appealing to people who don't like coconut, because the coconut flavour is quite strong despite that i had already reduced the amount. Eating this custard mooncake is like eating "Nonya Kueh", because of coconut milk flavour.

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** Just to update: the skin was very good on the first and second day, but turns very hard on the third day. But than again, this could be due to my inexperience in handling the dough.

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Baked Shanghai Mooncake & Rainbow Snowskin mooncake - 上海月饼和彩虹月饼

I was baking new mooncakes again yesterday. This time round, i tried to bake the Shanghai Mooncake (bottom right), Rainbow Ice cream soda snowskin mooncake (bottom left) and my favourite Flaky skin mooncake (Apple design). The Shanghai Mooncake was quite successful but not the other two. I still cannot achieve the flaky effect for my apple mooncake. As for the rainbow soda, still not perfect, the colours are not as even as i what i expect. Will have to practice a few more rounds.

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I also tried to cook some custard paste yesterday but failed, I steam the custard for too long. It became crumbles instead of paste. Haha.. But i don't really like the taste too, because the coconut flavour is too strong.

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The centre is cheese. Both my mum and i like the combi, because the cheese makes the mooncake not so sweet and more aromatic.

Snowskin Mooncake with Black Sesame Paste - 冰皮黑芝麻月饼

This is Ground sesame seed with lotus seed paste. Taste quite good, the aroma of the sesame is very strong, it's kind of like eating the sesame filling dumplings (汤圆). Recipe is the same as my first snow skin mooncake.

Baked Rainbow Flaky Skin Mooncakes - 彩虹酥皮月饼）

After trying the traditonal mooncake, now i wanted to try others. So tado! I baked the flaky skin mooncakes. Hmm... but this is not as successful as compared to my other mooncakes. I think partly was because i was experimenting with a very small quantity, therefore more difficult to handle. Why? Because with a tiny little bit of dough, i need to split them into four portions to add colours into them. That's why so difficult to handle. Just imagine, i was only making the skin for 5 mini flaky skin mooncakes, which is the size of a golf ball. Nevertheless it was a pretty good experience and i will definitely try again, because they taste great!

Actually, i have added 3 different colours. But because first time playing with colours, so i only added abit. In the end the colour didn't came out. The colours that i have added were Pink, Yellow and Green.

Baked Mini Traditional Mooncake - 迷你传统月饼

This is the first time that i baked traditional mooncake. I am so happy and excited. Because traditional mooncake is one of the toughest to make among all mooncakes. This is due to the skin texture, baking time and so on. And the trickiest part is that you will not know if your mooncake is successful or not until the 3rd day of making. Because this is the time whereby the mooncake will "return oil" (回油 - direct translation from cantonese), whereby it will help to "soften" the skin. Because normally the skin will be hard when freshly baked.

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I did not attend any courses about mooncake making. I just do research on the internet and also through reading several blogs on the making and ingredients. And i am very happy to say that it was very successful. The only thing that i need to improve is the wrapping, as the "skin" was quite thick at some part. But overall, i am very pleased with the results. I hope that this is not by chance and the next few batches will be better and better.

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I will update more information after i am done with all my mooncake experiments.

My first batch of minis after first round of baking

Still my first batch of minis but after second round of baking

I added a quarter of the salted egg

Snowskin Mooncake with Yam Paste - My first mooncake 冰皮芋泥月饼

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Actually, it has never cross my mind to make mooncakes, until my husband brought it up the other day. After doing some research, i decided to give it a try. Because i know he will be very happy and impressed if i can make mooncakes. So I started with snowskin mooncake, because it's the easiest. And since i have yam at home, i shall try out how to fry yam paste too.

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Tada! This is my first Snow skin Yam Paste Mooncake

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Yam Paste

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Filling

500 g Yam - steamed and mashed

160 g Sugar

80 g cooking oil

25 g wheat starch

5 shallots - slice

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Method

(1) Fry the shallots in oil till fragrant. Discard shallots.

(2) Add in mashed yam, wheat starch and sugar and fry till almost dry.

(3) Cool fillings before wrapping.

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Note:

1) The taste of the paste is very nice, except that i think it's not sweet enough. I will increase the sugar by another 20-40g next round.

2) The paste is abit dry, so i will also increase the oil by another 20g in my next cooking.

3) The shallot taste is too strong for me, so i will reduce the shallots to 2-3 instead.

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Ingredients for skin

90g Kou fen - fried glutinous rice flour

10g tang mien flour - (you can steam it if you want - for 10min)

30g shortening

1 Tbsp fresh milk

180 - 200g water

100g sugar

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Method

1) Boil water and sugar together till sugar dissolves. Cool in the fridge.

2) Mix kao fen, tang mien flour and shortening together by the rubbing-in method and then pour all the cold syrup and mix till you get a soft dough. Do not overmix.

3) Divide dough into small portions according to the size of your mould and then wrap up the lotus paste mixture. For lotus paste mixture, mix all together until evenly mixed.

4) Press into a mooncake mould and then knock it out.

5) Serve chilled.

Note

1) I use lesser water than the recipe called for, because after adding halfway, the dough was forming.

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Updates on the mooncake skin:

Day 1 - Fresh, but slight floury" taste.
Day 2 - The skin begin to turn hard (but that was because i did not store them properly. They should be kept in air tight container together with kitchen towelette to absorb the condensation formed in fridge). As for the paste, it does not taste as good as day 1, it became harder.

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