I made my very first mooncakes last Mid-autumn festival and that experience taught me alot. I even tried cooking my own lotus paste. Somehow, I couldn't get it to taste like those you buy outside. =( This year, to start off some simple mooncake experiments, I decided to buy a packet of White Lotus paste from Sun Lik while I re-stocked some cake-making items for an order. To my surprise, the paste tasted really good! It wasn't too sweet and still retained the paste's fragrance. Not too oily either. =))I was pretty psyched to start my mooncake making experiments so I refered, once again, to Aunty Yochana's blog for some mooncake recipes. I remember using her baked mooncake recipe last year but forgot how long i baked it for. I couldn't follow the temperature and timing stated in her recipe as I made smaller mooncakes. Speaking of which, I finally used the mooncake moulds I ordered from Elyn last year to good use! And they were REALLY easy and GOOD to use. The imprints were SUPER clear and stayed clear even after baking. I vaguely remember that when I was using those old-fashioned wooden moulds last year, the imprints were good before baking but were all blur and "smudged" when out of the oven. So, I was really really happy and glad with the result this time. HOWEVER, the mooncakes came out of the oven like a ROCK. seriously. It was like...HARD biscuits. Naturally I'd think I over-baked it.
Although I read up on various bookes and websites that baked mooncaked have to go through a "maturity" period for the oil that's in the skin to seep back in which will soften the skin. Again, vaguely remembering that aunty yochana's recipe need not this "process". So, was really pretty upset about the mini-experiment. Since I wasn't desperate to gobble up the moocakes, at least not in that rock-hard state, I decided to let them "mature"....
2 days later...
The skin is now soft! And they tasted like mooncakes! HA~ D gave it a thumbs up and my sister who tried the rock-hard one, now said this scores 100 points! haha..must be the vast difference in texture that led her to such an exaggerated score. =p
Although I used ~33% weight for the pastry and ~66% for the filling, my mum said the skin a little thick. But I like thick skin lehh (though i'm NOT thick skin)..okok bad joke.. in any case, I'll probably try 25% pastry or something, if my pastry wrapping skills allows me. =XX
More experiments coming my way!
*No pictures of the whole mooncake cos D happily gobbled 3 out of the 5 left. (I thought he took pictures of the whole mooncake). Now, there's only 1 left.
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14 comments:
Hi Youfei, glad to know you find the moulds a breeze to use! Look forward to see your other mooncake post too!
Hi Elyn,
Yea! I love them! Kinda regretted not getting the small mini ones..but..not enough $$ also hehe..
I look forward to experimenting more too! Just went to KCT today to get some pastes..tasted the red wine berry one..but hmm...didn't quite like it (maybe cos I dunno how to appreciate wine?) I got the pomelo, mango and green apple one though =p
Next time ask D to save some for us to try leh... ha ha
hahaha sure sure! I'll make more..let you all try then can let me know which flavour you all like..
you like salted yolks? I didn't know Shawn eats mooncakes. Somehow he strikes me as someone who doesn't appreciate festive goodies hahaha!
Hi Youfei, I thot their durian is pretty good too. For lotus paste, they have the one from Hong Kong Low Sugar white lotus paste so it's not so sweet. I tried the mango last year, it's quite fragrant too! Green apple sound strange too! I remember they have more flavours when it's nearer to the time so have to pop by again.
Hi Elyn,
Yea tried the durian one too..but not a fan of durian myself so...hehe..I saw the Hong Kong Low Sugar white lotus paste too! The mango and pomelo was pretty good..the chempedak was pretty odd with very little chempedak taste.
hmm..sounds like I gotta make a trip down again =p oh ya! I saw that they have pretty nice boxes there..those sturdy ones with magnet kinda thing with inserts that have cover complete with the paper bag i think.. $5.50 /set if I'm not wrong =)
Hi Youfei,
Your mooncake looks really pretty and nice. It's once a year to use the moulds only, so must fully make use of it during this period. Last year, I made so many snow skin, I decided I might not want to make this year... Haven't decide yet. :p Heehee...
Hi Jane,
hmm what about making baked ones this yr? =pp
or trying out funky flavours? haha!
Hi! Really nice mooncake you've got there. I like the "thick skin" too! =D
Hi tracieMoo,
Thanks! I would like to improve it further though =p haven't done any with salted yolk before and I think that's quite a challenge, both to wrap it well and not to overbake the yolk =)
The skin's yummy isn't it?
i like salted yolks. Shawn likes bing pi ones without salted eggs. :-)
durian ones sounds tempting. I think Shawn would LOVE to try the chempedak ones. You know after that Fri, he went to buy again then subsequently, he mentioned about buying to eat almost everyday.
Hmmm but the chempedak paste I tried wasn't very nice leh..tasted kinda weird to me..am toying with the thought of cooking it myself but..abit ex to try lehh..
Hey friend!
I'm SOOO damn slow in getting into making mooncakes! Hope I can sometime soon ... Yours look darn good! Yes about the maturing period ... That's exactly what I was told of mooncakes by my Aunt and Mom. Keep up the great work yea?
Pei-Lin
P.S. I'm in KL now ... Hope we get to meet up in the future!
Heyy!
You're finally back? how does it feel to be back in asia? haha!
I love the mooncake moulds I've got! they make making mooncakes a breeze =) And yea, I was really surprised the skin turned out great after 2 days. It was such a vast difference. yep yep! maybe one day I'll travel to KL to get baking stuffs? And I can pass you the book! =))
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