Mooncakes (月饼）

About This Recipe

Mooncakes, called 月饼(yue bing) in Chinese, are a traditional chinese snack eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. This festival takes place every year on the 15th day on the 8th month following the Lunar Calendar. The Mid-Autmn Festival also known as the Moon Festival is said to be the day where the moon is at it's biggest and brightest, hence where the name mooncake came from. It's a small round pastry with filling and intricate patterns pressed on top. Most mooncakes have an egg yolk in it because it looks like a full moon -My mom.

Information

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 1 hour

Serving Size: 5 (2 per person)

Ingredients

1/4 cup golden syrup
2 tbsp peanut oil
1 tsp lye water
1 cup all purpose flour
3 tbsp whole milk
10 salted duck egg yolks
1 egg yolk

Directions

Combine golden syrup, peanut oil and lye water together in a small bowl and mix.
Add flour and mix until dough texture.
Set aside in fridge to cool for 30 minutes.
On a scale measure one egg yolk and some lotus paste until it weighs 30 grams.
Next add some your dough to the scale and adjust until the total is 50 grams.
Roll the measured lotus paste into a ball and flatten it.
Place the egg inside it and make sure it is completly covered by the paste.
Roll the mooncake dough into a ball and flatten it to a disk.
Cover the lotus ball with the dough, gently stretching it so it's completly covered.
Once covered roll to make it smooth.
Repeat this process until you run out, it should make at least 10 mooncakes.
Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Lightly dust the inside of your mooncake mold with flour and shake off excess.
Place each mooncake ball inside the mold and flip it upsidedown.
With the mooncake on top of the baking sheet, press the handle to unmold the mooncake.
Repeat the process for all the remaining mooncakes.
Let your mooncakes cool in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 350ºF.
Bake the mooncakes for 5 minutes.
Whisk the egg and milk together to make an egg wash.
Take the mooncakes out and brush them with the egg wash.
Bake for another 10 minutes.
Sit the mooncakes on a cooling rack until completly cool.
You can either serve them as is or refrigerate them overnight.

Notes

Mooncakes vary from region to region, as do the fillings. This mooncake is the most common, and is referred to as Cantonese-Styled Mooncake. Lotus seed paste with salted egg yolk is only one of the many different filling options.

Substitutions:

Lye water can be substituted with 1/2 cup baked baking soda mixed with 2 cups of water.
Golden syrup can be substituted with light molasses.
Peanut oil can be substituted with a neutral oil like canola, vegetable, or grapeseed.

**Traditional Filling Options**
Filling	Cooking Instructions	Symbolism
Red/Adzuki Bean Paste	Soak adzuki beans overnight. Drain and rinse in fresh water. Boil with water for around an hour until soft. Drain water from pot and add white sugar, dark sugar, brown sugar and butter. Use a masher to crush the beans into a course mixture. (For smooth paste blend in a food processor)	Love and harmony
Lotus Seed Paste	Soak lotus seeds overnight. Simmer with fresh water barely covering them for 2 hours. Once done, blend until smooth. On medium heat add the lotus seed puree with peanut oil, salt, sugar and honey.	Purity and Perfection
Egg Yolk	Pour salt into an airtight containor with a lid. Make small dents in the salt bed for your egg to sit in. Crack open duck or chicken eggs and seperate the yolks. Place the yolks in the dents, making sure they don't touch each other. Sprinkle salt over the top of the yolks until fully covered. Let eggs cure in the fridge overnight or up to 5 days. After curing carefully remove them and rinse with cold water to remove excess salt. Gently pat with a kitchen towel and sit on a baking tray. Bake at 200ºF for 90 minutes and let cool.	Family reunion
Mixed Nuts/Five Kernel	Roast walnuts, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds. Chop nuts until roughly the same size and set aside. Combine sugar, peanut oil, salt, water, cooked glutinous rice flour and Chinese rose liquor together until it becomes a smooth dough. Mix together the nuts/seeds until well combined. (Any 5 nut/seed combination works)	Longevity and good health
Black Sesame Seed Paste	Grind toasted sesame seeds in a food processor unit a smooth paste. The seeds release their own oil so no need to add anything. Add 1 1/2 tbsp honey for flavor and to help keep it's shape.	Abundance and good fortune
Jujube Paste	In a saucepan cover dried jujubes with water and simmer for an hour. Cool slightly then peel skin and remove pits. Blen the jujubes in a food processor until a smooth paste. Add with a bit of oil over medium heat to a frying pan. Stir unil thickened into a darker doughy textured paste.	Good luck and prosperity

**Modern Fillings**
Filling	Cooking Instructions
Custard	Combine milk, egg, melted butterin a bowl. In a seperate bowl mix flour and sugar. Combine the wet mixture into the dry one and stir until smooth. Pour through a sieve into a saucepan and thicken over low heat. Continue until a thick paste and transfer into container. Press plastic wrap on the custard and chill for 3 hours to overnight.
Fruit (peach, strawberry, melon, pineapple)	In a saucepan add your choice of fresh or frozen fruit and cook over medium heat. Once boiling reduce to low and simmer for 4 minutes. In a bowl whisk cornstarch and water and pour into fruit mixture to thicken it. Remove from heatt and cool completly. Refrigerate filling for at least 2 hours.

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