Mooncakes Part III

Here's part III of this year's mooncake series. If you're wondering where did part II disappear to? or if I've made a mistake, it's actually here. I kind of forgot to name it proper (as I was obsessed with the "MORE" theme =S) but I suppose that constitutes as a part II too right?

So, I've finally finally started on the snow skin selections and ta-da here they are! All the mooncakes in this post were made in a day. yes, 3 flavours and 2 kinds. It was pretty tiring but satisfying too! I had fun playing around with the different mooncake plates and changing the designs. The headache comes when you've got too many flavours and you gotta start identifying them amongst the sea of mooncakes.

But but, snowskin ones aren't much of an issue. The colour tells it all isn't it? I love the deep hue of green on the pandan snow skin. Believe it or not, the gree came entirely from freshly blended pandan leaves. Nope extract, essence nor colouring added! Completely Au Naturel! (I think my spelling's wrong, but you get the picture) The mango snow skin was a little disappointing though, the nice golden yellow I was expecting didn't turn up! Though there was a slight subtle mango fragrance penetrating the skin thanks to the mango juice I used. =D The Mango Lotus was perfect this time after the horrible perfumy experience the last time round. yay!

The texture of the snowskin is great! But it was a little difficult to work with. I suspect it's due to the higher content of liquid. Anyhow, I'd just have to practice wrapping them nicely and make it look real pretty =)

Now this may look or sound odd to some (including myself). I embarked on this combination of flavour and "type of skin" as:

1. I wanted to see if I could wrap a salted egg nicely.

2. Know how to make mooncakes with salted yolks

I told D my plan and he kept quiet for a moment. We continued and finally he popped the question. "Are you sure you wanna put the yolk in a snow skin mooncake? I like mooncakes with salted yolks, but not when it's with snow skin!" I thought for a few seconds, and replied, "But I saw people doing that!!" I ran through the imaginary memory store in my brain (which doesn't function too well) and alas! I  found  remembered where I once saw it. It was from a mooncake recipe book, I quickly whipped it up and show it to D and went "There! They make salted yolks with snow skin leh". D had no choice but to accept the fact that this experiment was to be carried on. muahaha!

So since the yolks were to be placed in snow skin ones, it had to be thoroughly cooked before wrapping and thank God it was cooked and tasted nice. (I don't eat salted yolks, but a friend's mum loved it =D)

Note: These were mini mooncakes (~60g) and so the yolk was HUGE. My mum feels the yolks are too big and too over-powering. but hey! Everyone has different preferences right? I'd still be using full yolks for mini mooncakes. I though of making them half the size, but that wouldn't give you the nice round shape and beatiful innards anymore.

Enough of snow skin and crazy try-outs, let's go back to tradition. I was really excited to use this particular plate design you see here and it obviously proves useful in identifying mooncake flavours. Especially the baked ones because they all have the same skin! So quite obviously, this particular moonie had a Lotus filling. The only boo-boo is that I wished I had the "白连" plate design instead. I love lian rong, but prefer bai lian much more anytime! I learnt from the auntie at Sun Lik that the difference is actually just the lotus seed skin. White Lotus paste is cooked with the skin removed. Normal Lotus Paste is cooked with the skin intact. 

Here's the cross-section of the white lotus paste ones =) The skin, a tad to thick but I'm not sure if I should reduce it. Any suggestions? Would you eat a mooncake with skin this thick or a mooncake with slightly thinner skin? Leave a comment and let me know! =D

The challenge! Wrapping salted egg yolk in baked mooncake. This time, I cooked the yolks partially before wrapping them in. I've read that some cook them partially and some leave them raw. I felt uneasy about having them completely raw though I know they'd obviously be cooked in some way or another whilst basking baking in the oven. It seems like it looks a little over-cooked and appears a little dry. But D re-assured me that this is normal! How? Please advice a non-salted yolk eater. bahhhh

Just bear with me for the last one. Baked Pandan Lotus. I love pandan. Anything pandan. Pandan chiffon, barely cooked with pandan, pandan jelly, ...The smell of pandan Ahhh! its just so intoxicating. Don't you agree? Anyway, this pandan lotus paste is pretty good. =) Not too sweet and a nice real pandan fragrance. YUM!

So that's the end of Part III of this mooncake series, next up..probably...durian??

*I've received requests for mooncake order and I am very glad to say these will all be available for orders! Just visit sweetscouture.blogspot.com for more info on how to order. =)

*the above mooncakes are ~60g. Some are a little larger. I would only be making standard sized mooncakes upon special request. Book your order soon!  These are entirely home-made, so please understand there's a certain amount that I can make in a day. =)

MORE mooncakes!!

This is a delayed post as well =XX I actually got these baked last Friday. And as usual, I was lazy, tired and had a thousand and one excuse before I got these photographed, edited and posted!

My younger sister asked if I could make mooncakes with her as a birthday gift for her friend. I thought, what better excuse for me not to make it with her? =p So, with the new mango lotus paste and pomelo lotus paste we tried three different kinds of "flavours". Some were mango lotus, others were pomelo lotus and the rest mango and pomelo lotus mixed together. Sounds pretty interesting and yummy right? NO! To my dismay, the moonies turned out a little odd? With the pomelo tasting like....perfume? It was good if you nibble it and eat it bit by bit but not when you chunk it down your throat like no one's business.

Anyhow, we concluded that these would probably taste ALOT better with the snowskin ones, so experimenting that now fills up my free Saturday. (you'd know what I'm saying if you had followed my previous post)

These were the mango-pomelo ones. The paste looked so similar, you can't see the distinction between them after baking =( Worse still, they taste hmmm really special. =p

BUT but but, I had tried a slightly different ratio on the skin and adjusted the baking temperature and timings and yipee! They were thin and soft now, right after baking! No more hard, rock-like biscuits! I can safely conclude that I have highly over-baked them the previous time round.

But, no fret! From this mini mistake/experiment, I can conclude, mooncakes are resiliant to overbaking! muahah..but of course not when they're over baked to the point of being burnt and black. I don't think anyone would still want to eat that. haha!

So, my advice is (an advice from a mooncake novice..how odd) if you overbake them (i.e. hard like a rock and taste more like crunchy biscuits rather than mooncakes) just leave them in a airtight container for 2-3 days and ta-da! Nice yummy, soft  mooncakes. If you don't, good for you, just pop them right into your mouths =p

Due to poor calculation, I had leftover mooncak pastry and I took the chance to make some small little piggies a.k.a 猪仔饼. They obviously turned out a little wrong ha~ My dad thought they were mouse -_-''' and D thought they look more like crocodiles rather than pigs. sighh.. Despite they're dubious appearance, they taste pretty good =) Just like good'ol piggy biscuit =D