Saturday, September 13, 2008

3rd Attempt in Making Mooncake


I've used Lily's Wai Sek Hong's recipe for the Golden syrup since I was not able to find it in my local Asian market and I used Do What I Like's Mooncake Skin.

My first two attempt in making the mooncake skin was a failure. The consistency was crucial. It was something I could not get right due to the golden syrup. It would've been better if I had the golden syrup. The reason for all the failed attempt in making the mooncake skin was because of the golden syrup. I followed the instruction and boiled the sugar mixture until it was golden brown and when the syrup cooled down, it was really thick and hard like carmel so it made the skin way too hard and unmaleable. What I found out by the 3rd attemp was to boil it until it's slightly golden. A little lighter than vegetable oil. The texture of the mooncake skin dough is suppose to be very soft and maleable like bread dough except not gluteny. If the dough is breaking apart and crumbling, DON'T ADD MORE FLOUR!! Only add more flour if the mixture is still too sticky.



With all the failed attempts with the mooncake skin, I made them into cookies yay!! They were pretty good except for the cookies from the first failed attempt since I burnt them!!



Another unpredictable mistake that I had was the filling. I bought premade red bean paste, sesame paste and lotus paste in a can. The red bean and sesame paste were way too soft to roll the filling into balls. It just made a sticky mess on my hand. I tried freezing it, it helped but it made my mooncake skin cold and it tore easily. I mixed the sesame paste with peanut butter a 2 to 1 ratio but it was still too soft. It was much harder than the red bean paste.

The star had the lotus filling which had the correct consistency. The pig had the sesame and peanut butter paste. The cow had the red bean paste. You can tell in the pictures that as the consistency got softer, there were more breakage in the pastry skin. By the time I got to the red bean paste mooncakes the skin was blotched in red.




During the baking process the gravity pulled both the sesame & peanut butter mooncake and the red bean mooncake down so it looked as if it melted. I recommend to make your own paste if you were to make mooncake with filling other than lotus paste. If you decide to use canned red bean paste and black bean paste just reduce it on low-medium heat until it's thick enough for you to roll into a ball with your hands.

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