Moon cakes are traditionally cooked for the mid-autumn festival, where the moon is venerated. For my first recipe, I decided to be adventurous and give the following recipe a try, which I adapted from an american moon cake recipe I found on the internet:
Filling:
250 g red aduki beans
80g lard
100 g sugar (granulated)
I soaked the beans for around 6 hours, then simmered them on a low heat for approx 2 hours. I left them to cool overnight. The difficult part is shelling them. I strained them and mashed them with a potato masher and then pressed them in a garlic press, which made a reasonably smooth paste. I then mixed this with the melted lard and sugar, and cooked off the remaining fluid until a firm paste remained.
Pastry:
Shortening dough:
260 g flour
160 g lard
10 tbsp water
1/4 tbsp salt
Flaky dough:
130 g flour
50 g lard
Cakes before going in the oven
Roll out the shortening dough, reserving a small amount for the characters to decorate the tops, and roll the flaky dough on top of this. Fold the dough into thirds, roll it out again, and repeat. I then used a ramekin to form the cake, although traditionally wooden presses are made for this purpose. I glazed the cakes with egg yolk, decorated with the characters for mid autumn festival and pumpkin seeds.
Verdict:
ReplyDeleteThe pastry was very flaky and the filling very smooth, all together quite a good first attempt.
However, my Cantonese colleague says that this is nothing like a traditional mooncake.