Mid-Autumn Festival, I Made Mooncakes!

Published Oct 6, 2017

Mid-Autumn Festival & Mooncake

This Mid-Autumn Festival I decide to invite my friends for a dinner, just an excuse to celebrate friendship.

There were ladies from the Community House, our carers group and carers choir and some new friends, too.

For the dinner we had vegetarian fried noodles, gado-gado, which is Malaysian vegetarian salad with peanut sauce. There was also stir fried lettuce, which is also vegetarian and Inche Kabin – chicken marinated in spices and grilled. Inche kabin is a Penang specialty.  We have a  sandwich cake which Kerry and Militza helped to decorate.

The evening went well with all the guests getting to know each other and the conversation was, well, multi-subject, covering all sorts of things. It was good to see that the the guest enjoyed themselves with the food.

There were goody bags for every one.

Here is the recipe for the mooncake that I successfully made. I even enjoy eating it!!

ShangHai Mooncake

My previous attempt at making mooncake was not successful. So, I did not attempt it for some time. This round I am only going to make the moo cake that I like, ie, without salted egg yolk.

To be very honest I did not like mooncake at all. As kids we do not eat the moon cakes even though my mum bought those as offerings to the moon. We kids only like the ‘doll’ mooncakes. These are the little ones that are sold as little piglets in a basket, as well as the larger ones sold as, well, dolls – figurines made of the moon cake dough or pasty without filling.

To me, eating mooncake is an acquired taste and so I slowly develop this. Although I do not crave for it like some people do, I now do buy it for the celebratory significance. Having said that, I still do not like the ones with salted egg yolk. So for this year I decided to make my own. After doing some research I came across some recipes that only use short crust pastry. Thanks to Kenneth Goh, I have adapted his recipe as I do not bake very often and do not have all the ingredients on hand. After all, I feel that to buy the ingredients and using, say, 20 to 50g of it and not having other uses for them is a waste. So, my pastry is very simple.

I bought lotus paste, adzuki bean paste and sesame paste in London. These ones wrapped in thick plastic is less sweet than the ones in tin.

Here is the recipe.

Shanghai Mooncake

Quick Info:

Makes:       8 cakes
Difficulty:   moderate
Cost:            ££
Time:          10 mins to prep, 25-30 mins to bake

INGREDIENTS:

Pastry

80g      Unsalted butter, cold
250g    Plain Flour
2Tsp     Baking powder
25g      Castor sugar
¼ Tsp   Salt
1           Egg – beaten

Filling

400g   Lotus seed paste
200g   Adzuki bean paste
50g     Pine nuts or nuts of your choice like almond flakes, melon seeds, etc

 Egg wash
1           Egg yolk
1 Tbsp  Milk or water
¼ Tsp   Oil

Sesame seeds or other types for seed for topping

Method: 

Click here for instructional video

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C or gas mark 4.
2. Sieve the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.
3. Cut the butter into small pieces in the flour and rub until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
4. Add in the egg and quickly bring the mixture together to get it clumpy. Add in more milk if it is too dry. Once the clumps form, bring it together to form a dough and knead lightly. Wrap in cling film and set aside in the fridge.
5. Mix the nuts into the lotus paste and divide equally into 8 pieces and roll into balls.
6. Divide the Adzuki bean paste into 8 pieces and roll into balls.
7. Flatten the lotus paste and place a ball of the bean paste in the centre and wrap with the lotus paste. Shape into a ball. Repeat for all the paste. Set aside.
8. Remove the pastry from the fridge and divide into 8 equal pieces. Take a dough ball and flatten it and wrap the filling in the centre ensuring that it is well sealed and place on a tray lined with non-stick baking parchment. (I used a silicone baking sheet with cups).
9. Apply eggwash to the ball, ensuring it covers the whole ball as much as possible. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and reapply the egg wash. Sprinkle with sesame and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.
10. Cool and serve.

This can keep for a few days. The crust will be crispy. After a few days, the crust will soften a bit (in the tropics).

Enjoy !!

To have a good laugh at my failed attempt, click here.

That is all for this round and I hope you enjoy reading my post and my adventures. Please click, like and share!!

Cheers,

Penang Lassie,