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| Goddess Chang’e flies to the moon |
Mid Autumn Festival 中秋節 is our favorite festival of the year. It’s all about the gorgeously full harvest moon, children up late running everywhere, family eating, friends laughing, merry glowing lanterns bobbing in the velvet night amid luscious bites of rich mooncakes.
This festival combines a celebration of the fall harvest and a worship of the moon goddess Chang’e 嫦娥, she who drank an elixir of immortality and flew up to the moon to reside forevermore. Above is a lovely illustration of the ascension of Chang’e. The illustration shows the moment she achieves immortality and begins to rise up towards the moon. Her husband, as you can see, is left bereft without her.
But as the story goes, she decided to reside in the moon so as to still be close to her husband. On the husband’s part, he laid out her favorite cakes and fruits in the garden to offer sacrifice to her as the Moon Goddess. And that is the beginning of the Mid Autumn Festival and mooncakes.
Following ever since in the steps of Chang’e’s loving husband’s devotion, Chinese each year at this time go moon gazing and eat mooncakes in honor of the moon and her goddess. We will do the same this year with our lovely homemade fruit mooncakes.
The first little problem I ran into with this choice is tied into the gosh darn climate of Hong Kong. It’s a wet humid place all year around. Great for my dry skin but bad on things that need dryness to keep.
What happened is that the 2 day stretch between buying and using let the humidity creep into the freeze dried fruit and I was left with limp stickyness. If you’re smarter than me you’ll keep these suckers super dry and thus be able to grind them into powder which can then be added directly to your white bean paste and ta-da, your fruit infused paste is made. Or just powder them right away, that’ll work.
As all I had where limp sticky bits of freeze dried fruit I decided to cook them with a bit of water until soft (photo left), mashing and then mixing with my homemade white bean paste (photo right). Adding the puree will make the white bean paste soften and so you will need to cook over low heat until the water is cooked off and the filling paste is firm again.
The second little problem I had was that the freeze dried mango, in addition to being sticky from humidity, was also not really as colorful as a mango should be. So I ended up pureeing a fresh mango to add to the freeze dried mango, and then cooking the whole down to a thick puree before mixing the white bean paste.
The paste will be softened after adding the mango puree and needs to be cooked down over low heat until firm again.
Here is the final result of the fruit infusion into the white bean paste. You see how the filling paste is completely lusciously colored with the fruit and how it is firm enough to be shaped into balls. Your fruit mooncake filling is ready! Just let these chill while you make the wrapper dough.
TIP: The filling balls should be weighed before rolling into balls and the weight should be determined by the size of the mooncake mold you are using. There are so many different kinds of mooncake molds nowadays.
To determine the weights needed for your particular mold, experiment with the first mooncake you make, guesstimating by eye for the size and therefore weight needed for the filling and the wrapper until you get one that fills the mooncake mold exactly. Remember that the mooncake skin shouldn’t be too thick.
Filling done and chilling, we next make the wrapper dough. Mix flour, golden syrup, lard (or oil) and a tiny bit of lye water. The golden syrup is used to help the mooncake skin retain moisture and become soft and chewy. A bit of lye water 鹼水 helps to achieve the golden brown color.Just mix it all up until you have an oily but not sticky to the fingers dough.
Following the weights that you have worked out to fit your particular mooncake mold weigh out all the portions for the wrapper dough (left) and the fruit infused filling (right). We used the traditional wood mooncake mold of the smallest size. I rather like these as they make perfect bite sized mooncakes which is kinda cool.
Your mooncake is now wrapped. Time for the fun part, molding! Drop the wrapped mooncake into the mold. The side with the thicker thickness of wrapper should face down. This extra bit of wrapper thickness will allow the mold pattern to be impressed more deeply into the cake which then allows it to retain its pattern more clearly throughout the baking process.
See in photo right that the mooncake mold is exactly filled up. This is what you want to achieve when figuring out the weights needed for the wrapper skin and the filling in the beginning of the wrapping process. Just enough of everything to fill the mold up exactly.
Oh, yeah, super important. Be sure to flour your wrapped mooncake all around before setting into the mold. If you forget you’re gonna have a shy as pie mooncake that just won’t want to come out.
Once properly floured the mooncake should come out easily from the mold. Just turn the mold upside down and give a sharp rap on the table once or twice and the cake should slide out. Be sure to have a hand under the mooncake to catch it though otherwise if it lands on the table it’s gonna be a sad smooshed mooncake.
This is one of the biggest reasons I enjoy the making of mooncakes. Don’t these molded mooncakes just look super duper cool!? I get such a kick out of being able to make such pretty things with my own two hands!
The mooncakes are now baked until just set, then removed from the oven and brushed with an egg yolk wash before returning for a finishing bake. On the top and the sides, brush a bit of egg yolk and your mooncakes will come out with a most lovely golden glaze. Don’t let any egg pool on the top, though, that will end up obscuring the pattern when baked.
Fresh out of the oven, look at these gorgeous mooncakes! You’ll be tempted at this point to eat one right away, for sure, but actually at this moment the mooncakes are not yet ready. The skin is kinda crisp and dry at the moment and need to cool and rest for a couple of days. This is called the 上油 or ‘absorb oil’ phase. What happens in this time is the skin absorbs the oil from the filling and becomes soft and fragrant.
When all is done, it’s time to find a quiet spot under the autumn’s full moon, hang up your festive lanterns, break open a bottle of osmanthus wine and enjoy yourself some yummilicious fruit mooncakes 水果月餅: soft fragrant fruit fillings of the most gorgeous hues wrapped in delicately patterned tender skins. Enjoy, dear readers, and Happy Mid Autumn Festival to all!
Fruit Mooncake Recipe 水果月餅
(makes 26 mini mooncakes) Prep time:10 mins Wrap time: 20 mins Cook time: 20 mins
Ingredients:
Filling
0.63oz freeze dried mango, 18g
0.63oz freeze dried red dragon fruit, 18g
Mooncake skin
2 cups flour, 250g
3.5 tbsp lard (or peanut oil), 50g
1 tsp lye water 鹼水
1 egg yolk
1 tsp water
Directions:
Prepare the filling: Split the white bean paste in half. Process the freeze dried fruits into powder form and mix with the white bean paste until completely incorporated, making one mango flavored paste and one dragon fruit flavored paste. Weigh the fruit infused paste into 0.6oz/17g portions and roll into balls. Cover and chill in fridge while making the mooncake skin.
Prepare the mooncake skin: Add flour, golden syrup, lard and lye water into a mixing bowl and mix until an oily, smooth, non sticky dough is formed. If too dry add a bit more lard or oil. If too wet add more flour, one tbsp at a time. Cover and let rest for 15 mins.
Preheat: Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Wrap the mooncake: Weigh out wrapper dough into 0.63oz/18g portions and roll into balls. Take one ball and roll out to a 3 inch circle. Place one fruit filling ball on the wrapper. Place all onto palm, then gather the dough up and around the filling using a gather, turn, gather turn motion until filling is entirely wrapped inside.
Roll the wrapped mooncake gently to return to a nice round ball shape. Dust generously with flour all around.
Press mooncake mold: Drop wrapped and floured mooncake into mold. Try to drop the side with more thickness of wrapper facing down. Press gently so that the mooncake completely fills the mold. Turn mold upside down and tap the end once or twice while holding a hand below to catch the mooncake as it falls out. Repeat for all the mooncakes.
Place molded cakes onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet with an inch inbetween cakes. Use a pastry brush to brush off any excess flour.
Bake the mooncake: Bake for 10 mins. While baking prepare the egg wash by mixing the egg yolk with 1 tsp water. Remove mooncakes from oven at 10 min mark and brush egg wash over the tops and sides. Make sure that the egg wash doesn’t puddle in the top patterns. Place back into the oven to bake another 5-10 mins (depends on mooncake size) or until the mooncakes are a golden yellow.
Let cool completely before putting into an airtight container for 2 days for a ‘rest phase’. After the resting phase your fruitiliciously delicious mooncakes are ready to eat. Enjoy and happy moon gazing to all!
Storage: Keep in a covered container in the fridge for up to a week.
Moon Madness at The Hong Kong Cookery:
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