How to Make Snow Skin Mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival!

Mid-Autumn Festival is coming up soon! Mooncakes, or yue bing, are the quintessential food of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the lunar calendar's eighth month, marked by a full moon. Today, let's make snow skin mooncakes at home!

Notes:
Mooncake paste is sold in most Chinese supermarkets. It comes in a variety of flavors: red bean, lotus seed, red dates, and etc.
The dough to filling ratio is 1:1. Since I’m using a 50 g (1.76 oz) mooncake mold, both the dough and filling can be 25 g (0.88 oz).

Special Tool:
1 (50g) Mooncake Mold

Serving: 12 (50g) Mooncakes
Prep time: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Rest time: 2 hours and 50 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes

Mooncake Dough Ingredients:
10.6 oz (300 g) ready-to-use red bean paste
1/2 cup (2.6 oz) (75 g) glutinous rice flour, plus 6 tablespoons for dusting
4 tablespoons (1.06 oz) (30g) rice flour
4 tablespoons (1.06oz) (30 g) wheat starch
4 tablespoons (50 g) sugar
2 tablespoons extra light olive oil
3/4 cup (184 g) milk, cold
3 tablespoons powdered sugar, for dusting

Red Bean Paste Recipe:
1 ½ pound azuki beans
4 ½ cups water
1 cup sugar

If you want to make the red bean paste from scratch, first soak the azuki beans in water for 2 hours or up to overnight. Rinse and drain.

Then, in a large pot, add 3 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add the beans and cook over low heat for 2 hours, adding ½ cup water every 30 minutes, until they become mushy.

To thicken, turn the heat to high and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring constantly. At this point, the liquid should have almost dried out.

Add 1 cup of sugar and use an immersion blender to blend everything until smooth.

In a saucepan over low heat, add the red bean paste and stir continuously for about 10 minutes. The paste should feel thick and heavy, with the texture of peanut butter.

Transfer the paste to a plate, and place it in the fridge for 1 hour. (Once it has cooled, the filling will become firmer, and therefore easier to manage.)

#mooncake #asianhomecooking