Snow Skin Mooncakes
While looking around for classes to attend (to learn how to bake traditional mooncakes), I decided to try making some snow skin mooncakes first. Make hay whilst the sun shines! Afterall, Mid-Autumn Festival is only slightly more than a month away.
- I know this photo isn’t great, but oh well, it’s a bad-phototaking-skills day -
Snow Skin Mooncakes
For Snowskin Dough:
500g RED MAN Snow Skin Premix
200-225g ice water
100g shortening
1g RED MAN banana flavour
few drops colouring, as desired
100g glutinous rice flour (or koh fun), baked at 160°C
For Mooncake Paste:
1,000g lotus paste, personal choice
some melon seeds, lightly baked beforehand
- Add ice water to the premix to form a soft dough. Do not add all the water at one go. Check for consistency before adding more ice water in.
- Knead in the shortening. Ensure that no lumps are formed and the dough becomes smooth.
- Add in the flavouring and a few drops of colouring, as desired.
- Continue kneading the dough lightly until colouring is evenly distributed.
- Leave the dough aside to rest for about 30-45 minutes in a cool, dry place (or chill in the fridge).
- Coat the plastic mooncake moulds with some koh fun, and knock out the excess.
- Divide the rested dough into portions of 20-25g each (dependent on the size of the mould).
- Pat some koh fun around the surface one portion of dough and then press the dough into a flat, round shape using hands or rolling pin.
- Add in desired amount of lightly baked melon seeds into the lotus paste and mix well.
- Put an amount of 25-28g of lotus paste (or others) in the centre of the dough, wrap it in and softly roll it into a ball.
- Coat the ball with more koh fun.
- Place the ball into the mould and press until a flat surface is achieved, removing the excess dough.
- Knock out the shaped mooncake from the mould by lightly knocking in all directions with one hand and using the other hand to catch the dislodged mooncake.
- Immediately chill the mooncakes in an airtight container.
- Note : The snow skin mooncakes are to be consumed within 3 days. Keep mooncakes chilled in the fridge until ready for consumption.
Yield : 40 medium square mooncakes
The amount of dough and paste to be put into different moulds have to be achieved via a trial-and-error method as different mould are different in sizes. Also, be aware that if you’re using wooden mooncake moulds, the moulds will have to be soaked in corn oil for at least 3 days so that the dough will not stick to the moulds. The oil bath is not necessary if you are using plastic moulds, like what I’m using.
Another small tip. If you are keen on making green tea mooncakes using green tea paste, you can also add some green tea powder to the premix before adding in the ice water. As for the amount required, it is really dependent on how personal preference. As a guideline, I will use about 1-1 1/4 tbsp for 500g of snow skin premix.
So next on my list… probably green tea paste mooncakes (green snow skin), red bean paste mooncakes (pink snow skin), white lotus paste mooncakes (white snow skin) and durian paste mooncakes (yellow snow skin)!
awww pink mooncake!! pink’s my favorite color (needless to say rite, the color’s sprawled all over my blog lol). and your mooncake really looks pretty!! i’ve never had much interest in them, but after seeing yours, it makes me wanna try. and mayb i shd!! but it does look like alot of work, and im pretty much a lazy person :p
anyway well done lady!
Hi Evan,
YES, I can tell you like pink.
You should try! I’m sure you can make prettier mooncakes than I did. It’s not really much work. The ‘hardest’ part is preparing the dough. After that, it’s really quite simple. Trust me, I’m a very lazy person too!
After reading your entry, I feel so much wanting to try them too! Argh …
Hi Elyn,
Go try making them. It doesn’t take a lot of time. Really.
My mum tasted them… said it tastes as good as those commercial ones. She has 2 complaints though. She said it was too ‘pinkish’ and the skin is a little to crumbly instead of ’stretchy’. The former can be easily solved with lesser colouring. As for the latter, I think either it’s 1) too little water or 2) too much coating of koh fun.
Try and let me know how yours turn out!
I bought all my ingredients tonight and will try this weekend but I guess I probably won’t be able to finish the kou fen, wondering what can I do next.
Btw, I saw yr name in KC membership list, have u try to login?
Hi Elyn,
What about glutinous rice balls? I’m thinking of making those
And I just tried. OMG! I’m in! So happy!
Thanks so much!
Hi!
I hope you enjoy KC, I learnt so much there
Can I check with you how do u knead the shortening into the dough? Do I cut into small pieces? sorry, can’t figure out how to do it
Hi Elyn,
I used Crisco Vegetable Shortening, so it’s kinda soft to start with. I kinda like mash it up as I knead it into the flour.
Hope yours is a success!
Me going to do green tea mooncakes tomorrow morning!
hi,
i’ve got some questions here.. dunno if it’ll sound stupid =x
is it a must that i add the banana flavouring in?
how do i bake the glutinous rice flour?
does the lotus paste comes in a pkt or?
Sorri to ask so many questions. hope u’ll help mi. =)
Hi Joelle,
No question is stupid. We all have to start somewhere.
I do my best to answer your questions.
1) Banana flavouring is not necessary. It’s just to add fragrance. If you prefer, you can also put pandan or vanilla flavour.
2) Just pour the flour onto a baking sheet and bake it. It’s that simple.
3) Yes, the lotus paste in Phoon Huat comes in a packet. But once you’ve opened it, you have to keep it in an air-tight container and refrigerate it.
cadenze
Thanx alot for answering my questions!!! I tried making some today.. my family and collegues love it!
THANX for sharing!!! =D
Great to hear that, Joelle!
Home-made mooncakes always taste better because they are made with love.
Hi, I like your pink mooncake, care to share how to mix till this colour?
Hi Miya,
I just add the rose pink colouring from Phoon Huat. How light or how dark you want your mooncake to be depends on how much of the colouring you add into the dough.
do we need to bake the glutinous rice first? Is it a must?
Hi Jean,
I’m not sure what’s the rationale behind baking the glutinous rice flour. But the recipe calls for baked glutinous rice flour so I will follow it.
If you don’t want to bake glutinous rice flour, maybe you can follow the instructions written on Phoon Huat’s Snowskin premix. I believe they don’t require glutinous rice flour.
Hi cadenze,
If we were to make mooncakes with rum or bailey’s cream as fillings (like those famous ones from Raffles Hotel), how do we put the liquor into the paste?
Any advise?