Baked Chocolate Mooncakes - 4th September 2014

I’ve been seeing lots of postings on baked chocolate mooncakes.  When I saw Ann’s dark beauty, I immediately bookmarked her recipe!  So, here’s my version of dark beauty!   

Ingredients  (Recipe shared by Anncoo Journal)
113g Plain flour
18g Cocoa powder
85g Sugar syrup
25g Peanut oil
1/2tsp Alkaline water

360g lotus paste with one handful of melon seeds,  divide into 12 portions, 30g each

Method:

1. Mix sugar syrup, peanut oil and alkaline water together thoroughly.
2. Sift plain flour and cocoa powder in a bowl. Make a well in the center and pour sugar syrup mixture. Using a rubber spatula to mix and form to a soft dough. Cover with a cling wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.
3. Divide dough into 12 portions, 20g each and roll into balls. Wrap in coffee lotus paste.
4. Roll it into ball and dust with some flour. Press firmly into mould, unmould and place on a lined baking tray.
5. Bake at preheated oven 170C for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and rest mooncakes to cool for about 15 minutes. Then bake the chocolate mooncakes again for another 10-15 minutes.
6. Leave mooncakes to cool down completely before storing into an airtight container.

This mooncake can be eaten immediately with the cripsy....Wait for about 3 days for the mooncakes for skin to soften (回油)before serving.

Traditional Mooncake – 30th August 2014

This is my second mooncake bake.  This time round, I referred to the recipe shared by Jess Lim in her blog.. The recipe below is for a small batch, which is only 1/3 of the original recipe.

Ingredients
100g ---- Cake Flour
74g ----- Sugar Syrup
20g ----- Peanut Oil
3g ------- Alkaline Water
350g ---- Lotus / Pandan Paste
25g ------ Melon seeds
5 --------- Salted egg yolks (around 11-12g each) 

Glaze : 1 egg  + 1 tbsp water (mix well & sifted)

1 am using 125g mould (Skin : 38g,  Paste, yolk & melon seeds : 87g) 

Method:

1. Mix sugar syrup, peanut oil & alkaline water together thoroughly.
2. Sift cake flour in a bowl. Make a well in the center and pour in the sugar syrup mixture. Use a rubber spatula to mix and form a soft dough. Cover with a cling wrap and let it rest for 2hrs.
3. Divide dough into 5 portions (38g each) and roll into balls.  Wrap in the fillings.
4. Dust with some flour and press firmly into mould, unmould and place on a lined baking tray.
5. Bake at preheated oven 180C for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and rest mooncakes to cool for about 10 minutes. Then glaze with egg yolk mixture.
6. Bake for another 10-12 minutes till golden.
7. Leave mooncakes to cool down completely before storing into an airtight container. 

公仔饼（香化饼） - 28th August 2014

This year, I was kind of hesitating whether I should bake mooncakes.   It was a struggle between whether I have the time and whether I can resist not to, especially when I see so many postings on mooncakes!  

So, when my husband offered to bring me to Kwong Cheong Thye to buy the ingredients, I was like, why not?  ;)

So, I started my bake with this 香化饼 by 蓝色小厨.   I bookmarked this recipe right away after seeing it as I was eager to try out this recipe which has lotus paste added.

Ingredients (makes - 25g x 16 pcs) 
175g ---- Cake flour (sifted) 
115g ---- Mooncake syrup 
50g ----- Peanut oil 
2.5g ----- Alkaline water 
75g ------ White lotus paste 


Glaze : 1 egg  + 1 tbsp water (mix well & sifted) 

Method: 

1. Mix sugar syrup, peanut oil, alkaline water and lotus paste together thoroughly.
2. Sift flour in a bowl. Make a well in the center and pour sugar syrup mixture. Using a rubber spatula to mix and form to a soft dough. Cover with a cling wrap and let it rest for 2hrs. 
3. Divide dough into 16 portions, 25g each and roll into balls. 
4. Dust with some flour and press firmly into mould, unmould and place on a lined baking tray. 
5. Bake at preheated oven 160C for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and rest mooncakes to cool for about 10 minutes. Then glaze with egg yolk mixture. 
6. Bake for another 15-20 minutes till golden.
7. Leave mooncakes to cool down completely before storing into an airtight container. 

The  公仔饼 are made using the colorful egg moulds on the bottom left.