Pandan Snow Skin Mooncake

I know the Mid-Autumn (Mooncake) Festival has just passed, I still think this post is obligatory. Simply because I'm the boss of my kitchen, I can make mooncakes whenever I want :P

So last Sunday was 八月十五 (15th day of the 8th Chinese lunar month), the actual day of this festival and incidentally was the day Maggie and I decided to make these Snow Skin Mooncakes.

I used to first make mooncakes when I was 16. It was a little time consuming making it myself, but it was a very rewarding experience. I stopped making because I got lazy, until I came to Melbourne where mooncakes are ridiculously priced, which made me want to make them again. Traditionally mooncakes are moulded with a wooden mooncake mould, with intricate carvings in them. Recently I saw a Youtube video on how to make mooncakes and I saw these plastic mooncake moulds in the forms of cookie presses! How brilliant!

They are brilliant because 

- they're easy to clean

- they're easy to use

- they're light in weight

- there's no erm... violent knocking involved, just press and push!

I'm not even exaggerating when I call it violent. You knock the shit out of the mould to get the mooncake out. With that strength and how solid the mooncake mould is, you can easily knock someone out :o

When I went back Malaysia and went baking supplies shopping I saw them! I quickly grabbed a few of course. They were pretty cheap! RM 7.50 each for the mini ones. And because they're plastic and not wood, I didn't even need to declare when I went through customs in Melbourne airport. 

In case anyone didn't know, Melbourne, or Australia in general, is really strict with incoming goods particularly food and wooden items - even a tiny key chain made of wood. You're allowed to bring them in, you just have to declare. If you don't and they find out you didn't, when you were informed that you have to in the first place, you will be fined. If you declare, it doesn't mean they won't let you keep it. They'll check it and make sure it's of the standards they want before they let you keep it. It's a different queue, it takes more time, which is a hassle so I usually won't want to bother myself with it.

Back to the mooncakes.

You see that little tool at the top? That's the plastic mooncake press. It comes with a plunger, so all you have to do is put your mooncake 'ball' into the mould, press, and push the plunger to release the moulded mooncake.

Back in the days when I used to make the skin for snow skin mooncakes, I used a recipe which uses Koh Fun (Cooked Glutinous Rice Flour), sugar, water and shortening. And it tasted weird not in a good way. I suspect it's the taste of shortening. I use shortening to make puff pastry but that's cooked and it tastes awesome. Snow skin mooncakes made with Koh Fun and shortening are not cooked, they're mixed and rolled into a dough and that's it. Technically you're eating the shortening raw. Eww..

But at that time I didn't bother searching for other variations of the recipe until I saw this video recently, which uses a method that's different: steaming. I had to resort to this method anyway because I couldn't source any Koh Fun in Melbourne. I could dry-fry some glutinous rice flour to produce Koh Fun, but then again I hated the taste of that recipe I used to use so nah.

This was the video I initially saw:

 

When it's a Hongkie or an old, Cantonese speaking woman teaching you how to do it, you know it's legit :D

So anyway, I didn't use her recipe because I found this one that's pandan flavoured. I think either one will work. Hongkie lady's recipe uses coconut milk though. This one uses pandan juice which can be substituted. I figured that you can replace it with any other flavoured liquid you like e.g. juices but take note with the sugar content.

Pandan Snow Skin Mooncake Recipe

Adapted from: Christine's Recipe

Yield: 16 mini mooncakes (70 grams each)

Skin

• 55 gm glutinous rice flour
• 45 gm rice flour
• 25 gm wheat flour / wheat starch
• 60 gm caster sugar
• 230 ml milk
• 30 ml condensed milk
• 25 ml vegetable oil (anything pale, with bland flavour)
• 2 to 3 drops of pandan paste  

Filling

• Any paste of your preference, around 720-750gm. You can find these in Asian grocers, or baking supply stores. To make your own, simply google for recipes.

To coat:

• 3 tbsp glutinous rice flour, to be cooked**

1. Mix all of the dry ingredients (except for the 2 tbsp of glutinous rice flour**) in a bowl, and all of the wet ingredients in a separate bowl/cup.
2. Pour the wet ingredients mixture slowly into the dry ingredients and stir till combined. Lightly rub oil onto a heatproof, shallow bowl/plate. Sieve the mixture into the bowl.
3. Steam the mixture over medium-high heat, for about 15 minutes. 
4. While steaming, place the 3tbsp of glutinous rice flour** in a pan without oil. Fry over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. When smoke releases and the flour turns light yellow, it’s cooked. Remove from the heat and leave to cool completely. Use this to coat mooncakes later.
5. To test if the mixture is cooked, touch and pinch a little of the mixture to taste. If it feels solid, doesn’t have any raw flour taste, it’s cooked through. If not, continue steaming. Remove from wok and let it cool slightly. 
6. When dough is cool enough to be handled, scrape the dough out onto a plastic board or a kitchen bench top lined with cling wrap. Or you can put it into a heavy duty plastic bag like in the video. Lightly knead it until a smooth dough is formed. 
7. Depending on the size of your mould, you will need to work out how much skin and filling you need to make one mooncake. I used 25gm for the skin, and 45gm for the filling.
8. Roll the skin and its filling into a round shape, according to its respective weight.
9. Flatten the skin dough with a rolling pin (best to use a French style pin) and wrap the filling. Lightly coat with the cooked glutinous rice flour and shake off any excess flour. 
10. Press to push the mooncake into the mould, lay the mould on a flat surface and push the plunger firmly to print the pattern. Then gently release the mooncake. 
11. Store the mooncakes in an air-tight container. Put kitchen towel on top of the mooncakes to prevent moisture from soaking them. 

Notes:

• For steaming, the bigger and more shallow your bowl is, the more spread out the mixture and the faster it will cook. So steaming time depends on this factor. Ours took only about 10 minutes.
• The total weight of your mooncake should be engraved somewhere on the mould. Mine was supposed to be a 63gm mould and I felt that there's still space to fit more dough, so I stretched the weight to 70gm. If you're not sure, test with the skin dough by stuffing it into the mould (remember to coat with cooked glutinous rice flour to prevent sticking) and see how much you can fit. 
• The ratio depends on your preference. Some like more filling, some like it balanced. I did around 1:3, skin to filling. The lesser skin you use, the more filling you're going to need, the more mooncakes you'll be able to make with this recipe. And vice versa.
• Roll the ball into a slightly oblong shape so that it's easier to be placed into the mooncake mould.  Make sure the part where the skin connects (or I like to call it the 'ugly' part) is at the base of the mooncake. 
• Best eaten within the day. Once you store it in the fridge, the skin gets hard. 

We tried to make this custard filling that's apparently really popular in Hong Kong. I guess the recipe we used was just bad. The custard turned out really chewy instead of paste-like? And the custard was so soft that the mooncakes weren't able to retain it's shape. They looked like... green pumpkins wtf. It tasted alright but I think that sort of consistency isn't suitable for something like mooncakes. Probably better for a bun or something.

Apart from that, I absolutely love the taste of the skin! :D Finally something that tastes like the real deal!

The technique used and texture produced is similar to mochi, soft and smooth. The pandan flavour is light, not too overpowering so you get that slight fragrance but the filling stands out more. In her recipe it says to use pandan juice. We weren't bothered to get/do it so we replaced it with milk, as she suggested. Tasted fine.

That's it. This recipe will stick with me forever. No more Koh Fun and shortening crap.