Traditional mooncakes

 Mooncake festival is coming soon. I bet every bakers is making mooncakes at home to eat or send as gifts to someone, be it relatives, siblings, neighbours or friends.

Here, I'm making traditional mooncakes. Mooncakes are not my favourite, but I do love to make for the festival every year. The only paste that I like are red bean and lotus paste. In the past, I do not eat much mooncakes because they are too sweet. Now I can bake my own mooncakes and adjust the sweetness. My late papa loves mooncakes a lot, especially this traditional one and he will always buy the  red bean fillings because it is cheap and affordable and nice. I really hate mooncakes at that time. They are too sweet for my liking. After I started making my own mooncakes, I ate quite a lot from that day onwards. Well, just considered once in a year of sweetness although most manufacturers now have also lessen the sugar to "Less Sweet". 

 For the unacquainted, the celebration falls on the 15th day of the eighth month

 of the lunar calendar on September 21 this year.It is also known as mid-autumn festival.Each year during this time,the moon is at the roundest and brightess.

My family will gather together and enjoy eating mooncakes in front of our house outside and at the same time gazing at the moon while drinking tea too.

These days not many people want to celebrate the festival.Every year we hung lanterns all over our gate,but I never see my neighbours doing that.Even the youngsters are not interested in this kind of

festival or any other festivals,unlike the olden days when the older generation will sit together with their family and eat mooncakes and chat together all throughout the night with the moon above them.

What eye catching in recent years are the boxes of mooncakes are getting lovelier and more prettier.

People came out with ideas of making beautiful and colourful mooncakes too. Too pretty to be eaten away!. Come to think of it, I'm a very dull person. I can only make a few simple types and not creative, and one thing I know for sure is our family don't like mooncakes with salted egg yolk.

Mooncakes are getting more and more expensive. Don't you want to make your own? Follow the recipe below. It is very simple. If you don't want to make your own fillings, go buy the pre-made one.

Dough Ingredients:

100g Low protein flour (cake flour)

60g Golden syrup

30g Cooking oil

½ tsp. Alkaline water (lye water)

Divide into 4 with each 48g

Filling:

460g Lotus seed paste (4 x 115g each)

Some Almond Flakes

Egg Wash:

1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp water

Mix golden syrup, cooking oil and alkaline water. Sieve in flour and mix well until all ingredients fully combined into dough. Do not over knead/mix.

1.  Wrap with cling wrap, rest the dough for 2 hours.

 2. Mix lotus seed paste/red bean paste with some almond flakes.

 3. Place dough between cling warp and roll out evenly into 2-3mm thin disc shape with a rolling pin.

 4. Wrap mooncake filling with dough.Put some flour to the wrapped dough.

 5. Shape mooncake with mooncake mould.

6.  Bake in preheated oven at 160°C/320°F for 10 minutes. Spray mooncake with some water to avoid         crust from cracking during the baking process.

7.  Remove from oven and brush with egg wash.

 8. Bake for another 10 minutes or until golden brown.

 Crust of Mooncake will become softer and shiny after 2-3 days in air-tight container and ready to be served.

Red Bean Filling Recipe: (Yield 400g, 4 portions, 100g each)

Recipe of red bean paste adapted from mykitchen101en.com (I copy it down here, but I used ready made filling instead cos I was lazy to cook that day) (This is for future reference)

150 g red bean (soak overnight)

600 ml water

110 g granulated sugar

55 g cooking oil

15 g glutinous rice flour + 3 Tbsp. of water

¼ tsp salt

Instructions for red bean paste:

1 Wash and rinse red bean, soak overnight in the refrigerator. Soaking will reduce the time to cook and soften the beans.

2 Drain the soaked red bean, add in 600ml water, bring to the boil, reduce to low heat and cook for 2 hours until bean soften.

3 Slightly cool the cooked red bean and process using a blender until smooth.

4 Sieve the red bean paste through a fine mesh strainer to remove skin; this will give you a fine and smooth red bean paste.

5 Add in 110g sugar, 55g cooking oil, 15g of glutinous rice flour with 3 tablespoons of water and ¼ tsp of salt. Cook over medium heat for about 30 minutes, stirring constantly until a smooth and shiny paste formed. Cooking time may vary. Red bean paste can be prepared in advance and store refrigerated in airtight container.