No Bake, No Steam Snow Skin Moon Cake
I made snow skin moon cake! I used many types of fillings, in addition to the normal lotus paste and salted egg yolks. Coconut and mung beans from my previous bakes are used as fillings, too. There are so many computations. I like using the adzuki bean paste as the ‘yolk’.
I used lotus paste, adzuki bean paste, coconut, mung beans as in dragon ball fillings (tau sar pneah), salted egg yolks, rose essence, vanilla and pandan. If you combine the flavours, you would have many types of filling and skin combination. So it is up to you how many types you want to make.
This year the mid-autumn festival falls on 21st September 2021.
Easy does it...
This moon cake does not involve any baking or steaming. I use cooked glutinous rice or ‘gao fen’. This is available in the Oriental supermarkets. If you cannot find it, you can make your own by frying the glutinous flour over gentle fire until cooked. Cool it and use it. For your convenience, I have put some links to the ingredients at the end of the post.
I bought a moon cake mould about 2 years back but I forgot to make moon cakes last year. It is very easy to use and it comes with 6 different patterns.
The story…
Of course, there many stories about the Mid-Autumn Festival. I like this story the best. It tells the legend why offerings are made to the moon on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month.
I like this story best…
In the ancient past, there was a hero named Hou Yi who was excellent at archery. His wife was Chang’e. One year, ten suns rose in the sky together, causing great disaster to the people. Yi shot down nine of the suns and left only one to provide light.
After the hero Hou Yi shot down nine of the ten suns, he was pronounced king by the thankful people. However, he soon became a conceited and tyrannical ruler. In order to live forever, he asked for the elixir from Xiwangmu. But his wife, Chang’e, stole it on the fifteenth of August because she did not want the cruel king to live long and hurt more people.
She took the magic potion to prevent her husband from becoming immortal. She became light and flew to the moon. Hou Yi was so angry when discovered that Chang’e took the elixir, he shot at his wife as she flew towards the moon, though he missed. Chang’e fled to the moon and became the spirit of the moon.
Hou Yi died soon because he was overcome with great anger. Thereafter, people offer made offerings to Chang’e on every fifteenth day of eighth month to commemorate her brave action.
Nice story.
When I was a kid, we used to light lanterns in the evenings leading to the festival. Well, this was because lanterns and moon cakes and other food and celebratory items are sold leading to the event. Yes everything is commercialised. I remember playing with my neighbours and we would come together and light our lanterns and walk the streets in the evening, just for fun. It would end up with us, a group, and walking the streets like a parade. Other kids would often join in and it can get to be quite big a crowd. It was fun being in the impromptu parade.
Here is the recipe for the snow skin moon cake. There is not baking or steaming involved. It is best to consume it within 3 days or so. I read somewhere that if the moon cake hardens it can be steamed for a few minutes to soften the skin. The moon cake certainly hardens after 3 days, but I have not tried steaming it yet. It is all gone now.
I use a 50g moon cake mould. If you want to make 100g, just double the amount of filling and dough. You can also use a ratio of 1 : 1 dough to filling, if you prefer.
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For your convenience, here are the links to some of the ingredients.
(As an Amazon associate, I do get a small commission from qualifying purchases. This helps towards the purchase of ingredients in producing the videos)
Moon cake mould 50g: https://amzn.to/3EnJrGw
Cooked glutinous rice flour: https://amzn.to/3AfZfsu
Adzuki bean paste: https://amzn.to/2XjJ0wx
Salted eggs : https://amzn.to/2Z0ZTfS
Pine nuts: https://amzn.to/3tMpqof
Melon seeds: https://amzn.to/399DbnA
Icing sugar: https://amzn.to/3lupNzZ
Vegetable shortening: https://amzn.to/3EgkrkN
Gel food colours: https://amzn.to/3hCzHOW
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Here is the link to the Shang Hai moon cake that I made 2 weeks ago.
Full recipe is below.
(Note: I have made a mistake in the narration. The sugar should be icing sugar, or powdered sugar)
Easy Snow Skin Moon Cake
Equipment
- 50g moon cake mould
Ingredients
Pastry dough
- 200 g Cooked glutinous rice flour (Gao Fen) extra for dusting
- 85 g Icing sugar
- 60 g Vegetable shortening, cold and cut into small pieces
- 200 ml Cooled boiled water
- 90 g Melon seeds, dry toasted
- Food colours and flavouring of your choice e.g, vanilla essence, pandan and rose
Fillings
- 400 g Lotus seed paste shop bought
- 200 g Adzuki bean (red bean) paste shop bought
- 90 g Melon seeds dry roasted or dry toasted
- 50 g Pine nuts
- 3 Salted egg yolks The amount you use will depend on the size of the egg yolks. Salted duck egg yolks – cut into 4. Salted chicken egg yolks cut into 2 or leave whole if it is really small. 3-6 yolks depending on your requirement or no yolks at all
- 1 tsp Sesame oil
Optional fillings
- Prepared coconut filling
- Prepared Mung beans filling (Note: should you use the optional fillings, you will have some lotus paste or adzuki bean paste left over.
Instructions
Make the pastry dough
- Mix the glutinous rice flour and the icing sugar in a mixing bowl.
- Add in the shortening and rub it into the rice flour and sugar mixture until it is like fine bread crumbs.
- Add in the water slowly while mixing it with a fork to get the clumps of the dough. You may need more than 200 ml.
- Once the mixture is clumpy, use your hand to bring it together and gently knead it to get a pliable dough which does not stick to your hands.
- If it is too dry, add a bit more water. And if it is too wet, add a bit of the flour
- Divide the dough into 4 portions.
- Leave one portion without colour and add a few drops of vanilla essence and mix thoroughly by stretching and folding. Set aside.
- Colour the other 3 portions of the dough with the colours and essence of your choice. Then set aside all the dough to rest.
Prepare the salted egg yolks
- If you are not using home made salted eggs, go straight to ‘prepare the yolk for baking’ step.
- Break the salted egg and retrieve the yolks.
- Rinse the yolks in a bowl of water.
- Using a kitchen towel, gently dap the egg white that is still attached to the yolk. The whites should stick to the paper and gently remove the yolks from it. You may need to do this a few times.
- Set the cleaned yolk aside in a bowl.
Prepare the yolk for baking
- Drizzle some sesame seed oil over the yolks. stir and coat it.
- Place it on a baking parchment or grease proof paper and bake for about 6 minutes in 180C. If your egg yolk is big you may need to bake for 8 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
- Cut the duck yolks into 4 and the chicken yolk into 2 or leave it whole if it is very small.
- Roll or press the yolks into little balls.
- Set aside.
Prepare the dough
- Divide the dough into 20g pieces and roll into balls.
- Cover with cling film or a damp cloth and set aside.
Prepare the fillings
- Add the melon seeds to the lotus paste and mix well.
- Add the pine nuts to the adzuki bean paste and mix well.
- Divide the fillings in the following manner:30g of filling for each moon cake, or,25g of filling and 5g of salted yolks. ( approximate, it may range from 3 to 5g)
For fillings with egg yolks:
- Take a 25g of the filling and make a hole in the centre. Place a piece of the rolled yolk in, and wrap the yolk in the centre. Roll into a ball. Repeat. Until done.Set aside
To assemble
- Take a ball of the skin dough and roll it thinly.
- Place it over a filling and gently seal it by gathering the skin dough and bringing it together.
- Pinch of any excess. Shape into an elongated ball.
- Dip it in the rice flour. Lightly flour the mould as well, if possible.
- Gently place the ball into the mould, and gently press it down.
- Turn the mould over and gently press the mould making sure to hold the plunger down for a few seconds so that the ball is completely pressed.
- Remove the mould and there you have the moon cake.
- Repeat for all the moon cakes.
- Serve. It is best consumed fresh.
Video
Notes
