snowskin mooncake -- 12 pieces

After watching "Blessings" on Channel 8 (a drama with a story plot revolving around a traditional Chinese pastry shop), I am curious about the making of those traditional chinese goodies. It seems like the Malays are generally quite good at making their kueh-kueh; people love the western desserts and would part with a huge sum of money per month to attend pastry-making courses. But well, what about our huat kueh, ang ku kueh? Will it one day come to "extinction"? Just a thought. Hmph.

Since Mid-Autumn Festival is a week away, a friend's mom (whom I will affectionately refer her as Auntie Nice in this post) was kind enough to invite me and a friend to her kitchen on Sunday to make snowskin mooncakes! What I like about snowskin is...there is no need for oven (no, I have no oven at home).

Get ready your mooncake mould and let the adventure begin!

Ingredients:

300g sieved fried glutinous rice flour [lazy to fry? it's available in stores]

200g sieved icing sugar 

450g ice water

3 tablespoons of canola oil

half teaspoon of pandan essence
Some baked nuts [in this case we have lotus seeds and macadamia nuts]

900g red bean paste [Auntie Nice made the filling.You can either DIY or buy it off the shelf]

Method:

1. Add mixed nuts into the red bean paste. Divide the paste into 12 portions (balls).

2. Mix glutinous rice flour and icing sugar. Add in ice water, oil and pandan essence. Knead well to form a soft dough. Divide dough into 12 portions.

3. Flatten the dough, each dough to wrap a red bean paste ball.
4. Dust each ball with the rice flour and press into the mooncake mould.
5. Gently knock the mould to remove the mooncake.
6. Chill and serve!

we made some small ones of different flavours..kawaii ^.^

[moulds may come in different shapes and sizes, if you are unsure of the volume of your mould, weigh the amount of dough needed to fill up the mould fully. The ratio of skin and filling really depends on your choice. Also, you may add water from boiled pandan leaves for the authentic taste/colour. ]

Snowskin Mooncakes

Masak thoughts: We tried making small mooncakes, they were more challenging to make but manageable nevertheless. The ingredients and preparation are both cheap and easy (of course you can still have the choice to pamper yourself to those branded mooncakes...).
With the array of mooncake choices in the market, let us not forget our roots and the exciting tales behind these colourful (and sometimes even odd-shaped) mooncakes. :)

Can't wait to try out other traditional pastry tutorials! Thank you Auntie Nice and happy Mid Autumn my dear friends!