How to Make Mooncakes
by Brenda (a RW 7 Student)
Mooncakes are very traditional Chinese dessert made of
flour, lard, water, salted duck yolks, lotus seed paste or nuts. It’s named by
its shape, a full-moon shape, and we eat it during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Mooncakes are layered, flaky texture, crispy desserts like the French
croissants. The process of making a mooncake is similar to a croissant as well.
Both of them need to be rolled and folded several times in succession. Last
Sunday was our Mid-Autumn Festival, the most important Festival in China except
for the Spring Festival, similar to yours Thanksgiving for Americans, I made
lots of mooncakes for my church and neighbors. I changed the ingredients, so
it’s more healthy, light and delicious than before. I will show you how to make
mooncakes from scratch in four steps.
The first step is to make the
filling you like. My choice is lima bean mixed with cranberry sauce. It’s not
easy to buy the lotus seed paste, so I improvise with lima beans instead of
using lotus seed paste. Lima beans have a mild flavor, and you can add any
other flavors into it as you like. Firstly, I soak the lima beans in water for
2-3 hours. Then I peel all the beans by hand. The beans become easier to peel
after soaked. Afterwards, boil the peeled-beans with a little bit water in the
pressure cooker for 45 minutes. Lastly, after the beans are done, I mash them
with a spoon and mixed the paste with fried-flour (fry the flour in a clean pan
with soft fire until it becomes light yellow), sugar and cranberry sauce.
After the filling is ready, I can get started to
prepare the dough. I need two kinds of doughs, one is watery, and the other one
is oily. For the watery dough I need:
1 cup of
all-purpose flour
½ cup of
hot water
2
tablespoons of vegetable oil
For the oily dough I need:
1 cup of
all-purpose flour
½ cup of
vegetable oil.
Mix these two doughs separately, then cover with a wet
kitchen towel for 15 minutes.
The third step is important. It’s
vital to decide if your mooncake is crispy and layered. Divide the two large
doughs into 12 small round dough balls equally.
After that, roll out one watery dough into a thin circle,
wrap the oily dough ball inside. Then roll it out into another thin circle,
then gather piece together and roll it out again. Repeat these steps on the
mixed dough 4-5 times until it is a dough ball eventually. After one ball is
done, I work on the other doughs by the same technique. Lastly, cover these
combined balls with wet kitchen towels for 15 minutes. While they moisten,
divide the fillings into 12 small balls.
After 15 minutes, preheat the oven
to 400°F.
Roll out a dough ball into a large thin circle, then wrap the filling inside
and put it on a cookie sheet, pressing it with your palm into a round shape
like the full moon. Work on the other doughs and fillings. I brush egg yolk and
sprinkle sesame seeds on the top of them, making them more attractive.
Eventually, put the cookie sheet into the 400°F oven for 20 minutes.
Mooncakes are not just defined as a festival food anymore. They have
become more and more popular on the daily table. You can use any fillings you
like, even using bananas. I prefer to use lima beans because they are easy to
mash with spoon after boiled, no blender needed! Lima beans have a light flavor
so that you can add your own flavor! For example, if you’d like to make a
chocolate filling, add chocolate powder to it, that’s it!
Making mooncakes is not as difficult as you thought. Try it and the most
important thing you need to remember is to roll and fold the dough several
times!
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