Mid-Autumn Festival 2009 (mooncakes)

It's almost mid-autumn festival! Yep- I've been delaying this post for quite a while. But happy mid-autumn to everyone!!

I'll admit, I don't really know what mid-autumn festival is. I mean, why don't they celebrate mid spring or mid winter or mid summer?

To me mid-autumn festival means two things- lanterns and mooncakes. Lanterns because I used to play with them all the time when I was a kid-the battery powered blow up ones of course. And mooncakes because Asian groceries are always stocked with a billion different brands (and now flavours) of mooncakes before mid-autumn festival.

I never liked traditional mooncakes - I don't like lotus paste. But ever since I had my first snowskin mooncake a few years ago, I've fallen in love with them and now look forward to mid autumn festival. But good mooncakes can be ridiculously expensive. So this year, I made them myself rather than buying them. I have never tried to make snowskin mooncake before as we never had a recipe or the mooncake mould. But with the help of the internet and a brand new mooncake mould, I was able to make them. On the day after my first exam. Instead of studying for my next exam.

We used a recipe from a youtube video here. It's in Cantonese so both my mum and I could understand it - we were making these mooncakes together. Because being in the kitchen with my mum is awesomely fun! And, to me my mum is the best cook I've ever known (although I'm sure every thinks that about their mum)

Making mooncakes turned out to be extremely easy. We already had all the ingredients and it only involved a bit of mixing and shaping. And then taa-daa.....you have mooncakes! Making the 'custard' was quite fun- the custard mixture was heated in a pan and then after a couple of minutes, it magically turned into custard!!

The mooncakes tasted great (especially after we put them in the fridge) and were very very soft which is why they lost their shape so easily. However, they taste quite different to the store bought mooncakes. But definitely worth making!!

Custard Filled Snowskin Mooncakes

For the skin:

3 oz cooked glutinous rice flour
1 oz cornflour
2 oz sugar
1 oz butter
8 oz milk

1. Sift together the rice flour and corn flour. Set aside.
2. Heat the milk, sugar and butter together in a pan until very hot
3. Remove from heat and quickly mix it into the flour mixture. Continue mixing until it becomes a soft ball of dough then put in fridge to cool.

For the ‘custard’ filling:

1 oz plain flour
2 oz custard powder
1 oz corn flour
4 oz sugar
15 oz milk
2 eggs
1 oz butter

1. Mix the flours and sugars together in a mixing bowl. Mix the eggs into the flour mixture. Then mix the milk in.
2. Strain the mixture into a saucepan and add the butter. Heat the mixture, stirring continuously until it solidifies.
3. Cool the ‘custard’.

Assembling the mooncake:

1. Divide the custard filling into your desired number of portions(depends on the size of your mooncake mould)
2. Divide the mooncake skindough into the same number of portions
3. Roll the filling up into a ball. Roll out the ‘skin’ so that it is flat and wrap around the filling (it will bevery thin). Dust with extra cooked glutinous rice flour and then put in mould to shape.

Taa-daa! You have mooncakes!
Happy mid-autumn festival everyone!!