Snowskin Mooncakes

I first made mooncakes about 10 years or so ago.  Both snowskin and traditional baked ones.  Only once and I didn't attempt again.  Not that they were no good.  Both types were commendable for a first try.  If I remember correctly, the reason I didn't attempt again was because I couldn't get hold of a good filling.  Mooncake fillings did not have as many variaties and good quality white lotus paste was not commercially available to the home baker at that time.  ( It could have been more than 10 years ago when blogging was non existence yet.)

My full time job is usually less hectic this time of the year.  And with my kids' birthday celebrations over for the year, I thought of volunteering my services at my child's school again i.e. to teach the kids baking.  The idea of making mooncakes came naturally as I recall they were quite easy to make and of course, because the Mid Autumn Festival was just round the corner.  So that is why I'm attempting to make mooncakes again.

I had thrown away or misplaced my old recipe since I wasn't expecting to make them again.  I even threw away the wooden mould.  So, I set about looking for a new recipe on the internet and chanced upon Ann's (of Anncoo Journal) green tea mooncake recipe.  Ann says that Kwong Cheong Thye's premix snowskin flour gives a soft texture that keeps for a week.  The perfectionistic me who only uses the best ingredients thus made my way to KCT and bought 4 packs of the flour at one go.  (I needed a pack for testing, 2 packs for the kids' lessons and another pack to make some for the family, that's how I estimated.)  Geylang was one of my least favourite places to drive to, not so much for its sleaze but the traffic and parking are a driver's nightmare.  So to avoid having to go th Geylang again anytime soon, I bought all I needed for the festival and today, I attempted Green Tea Snowskin Mooncakes.  I used the recipe from the premix packaging but substitued the syrup with icing sugar like Ann. 

Here is my recipe which makes about 6 125g size mooncakes.

100g Pinpe Premix Flour (from KCT)
15g shortening (I used Crisco)
20g icing sugar
135ml water
1 tsp green tea powder (optional, can be replaced with other flavourings)
510 g Lotus Paste (I used Phoon Huat)
6 Salted egg yolks
Gao Fen for dusting

Method:

Boil the water, add in green tea powder and simmer for another 3 mins, add in icing sugar and shortening.  Turn off fire when shortening has melted.

• Pour the hot liquid into the flour gradually and mix with a spatula or large spoon.  The mixture will become a soft dough.
• I let it cool while I work on the other ingredients.
• Salted egg yolks: separate the egg yolk when raw, wash it under running tap then steam for 5 mins to cook.
• To make 125g size mooncakes, use 80g lotus paste, wrap the egg yolk in the paste and roll or mould it into the shape of your mould (but smaller of course).
• Use 35g of the snowskin dough, flatten it and dust both sides with gao fen.  Using a rolling pin, roll till about 3mm thick, wrap around the lotus past filling and shape it till you can fit it into the mould.
• Dust with more gao fen, press into the mould firmly and unmould.  Store in an airtight container and chill before eating.

I must say that these plunger moulds are really good compared to those traditional wooden ones.  The prints come out very well defined.  Even if you had made your mooncake too small, you can just press it down more to fit the shape so doesn't punish the less meticulous.

Yes! Hello Kitty again!


And, what is the verdict?  When I first tasted the dough without any filling, I was hugely disappointed.  I could taste the Crisco shortening and I hated that taste.  Fortunately, when the mooncake was completed, the lotus filling and egg yolk had masked the shortening taste.  The lotus paste was good.  Smooth, not too sweet and doesn't feel like it contains too much flour.  However, I have to be honest that I don't quite like this mooncake mix.  The dough was too soft, without that chewy feeling.  There was also that faint vanillin flavour which I don't like either.  (Yes, I'm quite a discerning foodie.)


Since I've gotten into the Mooncake madness, I need to search for a recipe that is perfect to me.  I recall that the one I did previously involved steaming the flour.  I just chanced upon another recipe which required steaming Hong Kong flour and uses less shortening.  I think I'm going to try that so stay tuned!