Lotus Paste Mooncake

Before Bake



Hm, Mid-Autumn (Mooncake) Festival is around the corner. I begin to crave for Lotus Paste Mooncake with melon seeds. A lot of well knows Restaurants or Hotel starts to have early bird promotion on Mooncake. It comes in a wide varieties, from savory, sweet, spicy or cold flavor.

In the recent years, most bakers’ stop including melon seeds as part of the filling. I don’t know the reason behind it for not adding in this ingredient. But I did miss it very much.

Actually I don’t have the intention to make any Mooncake. I was at Phoon Huat and saw all the Mooncake ingredients displaying on the shelf. I bought 1 kg of White Lotus Paste, a packet of Melon seeds, a bottle of Golden Syrup and Super Glaze.



I’m very pleased with the new packaging of Golden Syrup. It comes in plastic non-drip bottle as compared to the previous tin pack. I always worry the tin will turn rusty and contaminate the syrup. I can now well be assured it is safe and no rush in utilizing the whole bottle of syrup.

Ingredients (8 pcs of Mooncakes)

• 200 gm HK flour
• 130 gm sugar syrup (Golden Syrup)
• 5 tbsp corn oil
• 1/4 tsp alkaline water

Fillings :

• 900 gm Lotus paste (you can use Lotus or White Lotus Paste)
• 20 gm melon seeds(wash & dry)
  Cook in microwave or lightly roast in oven for 2 mins
  (stir in between)
• 8 salted egg yolk (optional)

(to reduce the strong smell of duck egg yolks, add 1-2 tsp of rice wine to the yolks. Set aside for a while. Remove the yolks and steam for 5 mins. Observe the yolk color, do not over steam. Should remains bright oranges color. Remove immediately from the stove and put aside to cool before using.

• 1 egg yolk + 1/2 egg white (for brushing)

Method:

1. Sieve the flour, and make a well in the centre.
2. Pour in syrup, oil and alkaline water, knead gently into a dough or use a blender to mix the dough. Leave aside (10 mins with cling wrap or plastic sheet).
3. Mix lotus paste with melon seeds and divide into 8 rounds.
4. Wrap round with egg yolk.
5. Divide dough into 8 pieces and shape into round shape.
6. Flatten the dough and wrap the round (Lotus paste + melon seeds).
7. Dust the mould with some flour and press the wrap dough into the mould.
8. Remove dough by knocking the two sides against a table top (put layers of table cloth under the mould to support before the knocking).
9. Place Mooncake on baking tray.
10. Repeat steps 6 to 9 until you have finish working on the 8 pcs of Mooncake.
11. Brush with egg wash on each pieces of Mooncake.
12. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree c for about 25 mins (high rack or more to upper heat).
13. Remove from oven and placed on tray to cool down.
14. Brush with super glaze (furnishing effect-optional).

Tips:-

• Leave mooncake at room temperature for 3 - 5 days before consumption.
• Thickness of Mooncake skin - three variation (30gm - thin, 40gm - thick, 50gm - thickest)
• You need to do some math before dividing the ingredient and dough to fix into the Mooncake mould.
• If you are using a wooden mould and for the first use, you need to treat the mould. Pour cooking oil to fully fill the Mooncake mould and soak overnight. Discard the cooking oil in the mould (there's two tiny little hole beside the mould, use a toothpick to insert thru the hole to avoid the oil from flowing out). Wash and let dry the mould for later use. Is worth the effort to perform this step as the mould will last a life time even after extensive use.

Mould Metrics Calculation

- Use a plastic bag and scoop enough lotus seed paste to fill the mould together with the plastic bag. Press into the mould and release out the lotus seed paste (with the plastic bag). Put the lotus seed paste with the plastic bag on to the weighting scale to determine the weight of the Mooncake per the Mooncake mould.

- Next, breakdown the respective weight contributes by the various ingredients.

- Eg.
My Mooncake mould can make a 175 gm of Mooncake.

- Weight the yolk and the pastry

- If my total weight for the pastry is 372 gm divide by 8 nos of ooncake that I'm going to make = 46.5 gm. I portion it to 4 x 46gm and 4 x 47gm.

- Yolk is about 15 gm

To fill 175 gm

• Pastry = 46 gm
• Yolk = 15 gm
• Lotus paste = 114 gm

This will be the metrics of my Mooncake (per piece). Is alright to have weight varies of 1 - 2 gm per ingredient. So long the overall weight adds close to it.