Recipe: Cantonese Style Mooncakes - Here is another recipe Stacey. Seems to be complicated!

CANTONESE STYLE MOONCAKES

Syrup:
45g peanut oil
5g lye/alkaline water
110g golden syrup
5g black treacle/dark soy sauce ( See Note 1)

Pastry:
150g cake flour
5g cornflour
Pinch of salt

Filling:
1 kg mooncake paste, any flavour
50g melon seeds
8 nos. salted egg yolks (optional, see Note 2)

Egg glaze:
1 egg
1 tbsp water
1 tsp peanut oil

METHOD:

To prepare syrup: Combine all ingredients of syrup in a pan. Stir over low heat until the golden syrup is dissolved. Remove from stove and set aside to cool (Pic. 1).

To prepare mooncake pastry: Sift cake flour, cornflour and salt twice. While the syrup is still slightly warm, pour it into the sifted flours. Using K-beater of your mixer (Note 3), mix flours and syrup to form a soft dough (Pic. 2). Cover with cling film and stand at room temperature for 10-12 hours (Note 4).

To prepare mooncake paste: Spread mooncake paste on a piece of plastic sheet (Pic. 5). Spread melon seeds on the paste (Pic. 6) and roll the paste up like rolling a swiss roll as shown in Pic. 6. Spread the paste and roll it up again to make sure melon seeds are nicely "embedded" in the paste.

Divide mooncake pastry in Step 2 to 7 portions of 40g and 1 portion of 15g (small mooncake). Knead each portion for a while and roll into a ball (Pic. 7).

Divide mooncake paste in Step 3 to 7 portions of 120g (for mooncake with yolks) and 1 portion of 30g (small mooncake), OR 7 portions of 140g (mooncakes without yolks). Knead each portion a little and form each into a ball (Pic. 7).

Lightly flour (using cake flour) your hands. Flatten a pastry dough on your palm to be a 2.5-inch circle. Press to make the edges thinner than the central part (Pic. 8). Place a ball of paste as shown in Pic. 9. Start pushing the paste against the dough as shown in Pic. 10. As you push the paste, the dough will start enlarging (Note 5).

Press the centre of the paste lightly and place an egg yolk there. Continue to wrap up the mooncake as shown in Pic. 11-13. Roll into a ball.

Lightly flour the mooncake. Place mooncake, seam side up, in mould. Flatten moocake to conform to shape of mould (Pic. 14). Bang upper, lower, left and right sides of mould to dislodge the mooncake (Pic. 15-17, Note 6). Place cake on a baking tray lined with grease-proof baking sheet (Pic 18). Repeat to shape remaining mooncakes.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degC for 10 minutes.

At the meantime, prepare egg glaze. Beat egg slightly. Add peanut oil and water. Strain the egg mixture.

Remove mooncakes from oven and set aside for 10 minutes. Brush with egg glaze (Pic 19). Stand for further 5 minutes before returning mooncakes to oven. Bake for another 10-15 minutes.

Transfer mooncakes to a wire rack and let cool (Pic. 20).

Store for 2-3 days before serving.

NOTE:

Black treacle provides the nice brownish colour of the mooncakes. If it is not available, substitute it with dark soy sauce.

To reduce the strong smell of duck egg yolks, add 1-2 tsp of rice wine to the yolks (Pic. 3). Set aside for a while. Remove the yolks on to a baking tray (Pic. 4)and bake for 3-4 minutes at 150 degC. Remove and allow the yolks to cool before using. If you can tolerate the smell of the salted yolks, omit the wine-treatment stage. Just steam the yolks for 2 minutes. Let cool before use.

If your mixer does not come with a K-beater, you can do this to smoothen the dough - Transfer the dough onto working surface. Use the heels of your hands to slowly push the dough away. Pick up the edge furthest away from you and fold toward you, sliding the dough back to its original spot. Repeat until no flour pockets are found in the dough.

Do not leave the pastry for more than 18 hours or the pastry will be too dry and start cracking when used.

I would say this is the most important step in wrapping mooncakes. This step ensures that your mooncake will have a uniform thickness. Need some time to master the skill. Be patient and you will definitely get it right!

Make sure you are using equal force to bang the 4 sides of the mould or you may have difficulty dislodging out the mooncake.

Mooncake moulds vary in sizes. Please adjust amount of paste according to your own mould.

Reference:
Catherine Lau's notes in mooncake baking class.
"Make your own mooncakes", by Amy Beh
"A feast of mooncakes", by Amy Beh