Snow Skin Mooncakes
Enough babbling. The mooncakes are really easy to make, so don't be intimidated. You mix a few ingredients together to form a dough. You do need mooncake molds though. I bought mine from eBay last year, but they are now also available on Amazon. I bought the plastic ones, rather than the traditional wooden ones. It's easier to use and comes with many interchangeable faceplates. The traditional fillings — lotus paste, red bean paste, etc — can be found at Ranch 99 in their fridge section of prepared items. It took a few before I got the hang of making them again. Snow skin mooncakes use a cooked glutinous rice flour crust, resulting in a very soft mochi-like texture. With the right ingredients and tools they are actually really easy to make and don't require any baking, although the cakes need several hours to chill in the refrigerator before serving. PREP TIME: 30 minutes. COURSE: Dessert. CUISINE: Chinese. SERVINGS: 9 (100 g) mooncakes.
Ingredients
| 100 g | Roasted glutinous rice flour (see note) |
| 90 g | Icing sugar |
| 30 g | Shortening |
| approx 50 g | Cold water |
| — | Filling of your choice (see note) |
| — | Food coloring |
Instructions
- Sift the flour and icing sugar in a mixing bowl. Gently rub the shortening into the flour mixture, combining until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. If using food coloring, add drops into the cold water. Mix in the cold water about 1 tbsp at a time and knead dough until soft dough forms. You may need slightly less or slightly more water so don't pour it all in at once. It's best to knead the dough with your hands so that it comes together. The dough should be soft and malleable. Make sure you work with the dough right away because it gets hard and dry if it sits out.
- Divide dough, depending on size of mooncake molds. The ratio should be 1 part dough, 2 parts filling. So for a 100 g mooncake, you would weigh out 30 grams of dough and 70 grams of filling.
- Flatten the ball of snow skin and roll out until you get a thin circle. Place the ball of filling in the center of the dough and seal the filling with the snow skin dough. If there are any holes in your dough, smooth them out. Put the seam-side part of the ball into the mold and pack it in gently (the folded bunched-up section will get flattened and shaped by the face plate). Flip it over onto a flat surface. Press down on the lever hard so that the mooncake shape is formed and the face plate makes an imprint. Then squeeze to release the mooncake. Repeat with remaining dough. Chill for 6 hours before serving. Keep uneaten ones in the fridge.
Notes:
- Look for glutinous rice flour at Chinese or Vietnamese markets.
- I bought premade red bean and lotus pastes for my mooncake filling. You will need quite a lot of filling, so plan for about 70 grams per 100 gram mooncake.
- If you can't find roasted glutinous rice flour, you can make your own.