Baked mooncake skin

After a lot of reading up, I decided to go mostly with Souped Up Recipes due to her extensive video and tips as well as use of cake flour. I've incorporated some of the good tips from others. This recipe only documents the dough as I bought ready-made filling which comes in 500g packages. This recipe can make varying amounts of mooncakes depending on size of mould. I devised a whole spreadsheet for my 75g, 150g and 200g moulds with single and double yolk variations! In this recipe, I made 2.5x the amount of dough in order to produce 20 mooncakes of various sizes, with 4 types of fillings (store-bought 500g each package of filling)

The 20 mooncakes, not including another tray of 4 spares with single yolks (leftover filling and dough)

The full bake, including spares (aka 1 yolks)

Double yolk in 200g mold - looks a bit dry? The yolk was abit rubbery. Proportions are also out, seems like too little filling to too much yolk

Single yolk in the 150g mold. Seems like ideal proportion of yolk to filling

Ingredients (Makes one portion of 420g dough to wrap approx. 500g filling)

250g cake flour

135g golden syrup

50g veg oil (peanut preferred)

3g (½ tsp) salt

13g (2.5 tsp) lye water (homemade)

Egg wash: 1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp water

12 egg yolks (may not end up using all)

2 tbsp rose wine

2 tbsp sesame oil (optional)

Method

1. Mix golden syrup, veg oil, lye water and salt. Lightly beat until incorporated.

2. Sift in 250g flour and lightly knead until the dough is elastic and pliable but doesn't stick to the hands. Don't over-knead. Cover with cling film and leave on the counter to rest for 2 - 3 hrs until no longer sticky.

3. Marinate the egg yolks in rose wine (or sesame oil) for 5 minutes. Remove and wipe dry with paper towel. Weigh each yolk and set aside. (Optional: bake for 150g for 6 mins then let cool to give the yolk a roasted flavour, although Taste Asian says no need).

4. Weigh out filling and roll each into a ball: i.e., individual fillings + egg yolk (approx 12g each) should equal total weight of filling. Cover with cling film.

75g mould (no yolk) using 1:3 ratio: 25g dough + 50g filling 

150g mould using 2:3 ratio: 50g dough + 100g filling; with 1 yolk: 50g dough + 21g yolk + 79g filling (#see note)

200g mould using 2:3 ratio: with 1 yolk: 80g dough + 21g yolk + 99g filling; with 2 yolks: 80g dough + 2*21g yolks + 78g filling (see video for how to roll encase 2 yolks, essentially, make into an oval 'ball'.

5. Weigh out dough and roll into balls. Cover with cling film. Prepare tray to bake - best to indicate which tray/portion of the tray is for what filling(s).

6. Encase dough over filling (see video). Using palm, press out each dough ball into a circle about 4 to 5 inch diameter if using 100g mould. Turn it upside down and wrap so that there are no air pockets. Turn back right-side up and then slowly press the dough to slowly encase the filling until it completely covers and then pinch the same to close.

7. Place ball into mould and lightly flatten. Place mould on baking tray. Press down until you encounter resistance. For round moulds, hold the pressure steady for at least 15 seconds or stamp several times to establish the pattern. For square moulds, hold the pressure steady for at least 30 - 40 seconds so the filling and dough fill out the corners. (probably not advisable for beginners to have yolk inside when using square moulds as it might flatten the egg)

8. Mist each mooncake from a height (to prevent too much water accumulating in the ridges of the pattern). Immediately put in the oven and bake on middle rack at 180 deg C for 10 mins until edges harden and turn lightly golden brown. (5 - 7 mins in small oven and 7 - 10 mins in big oven)

9. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 20 mins. Don't eggwash when the mooncake is hot otherwise the pattern will run. Egg wash the top and sides lightly with egg. Remove excess wash from in between the ridges with smaller brush or blot with kitchen towel so the pattern doesn't blur. Return to oven to bake:

- Bake at 180 deg C for further 5 to 10 minutes (5 - 7 mins in small oven and 7 - 10 mins in big oven) at same temperature until golden brown. Keep a close eye as fillings are cooked so it's about getting a golden skin. Don't bake for too long or it will dry out and crack.

- Optional: remove and egg wash for second time after 5 minutes then return to oven to finish baking, approx. 5 to 8 more minutes but keeping a close eye so they don't burn or burn.

10. Leave in tray to cool for at least 30 minutes as skin will be soft and flakey and easily break or crack when hot. Once cooled slightly, leave on wire rack to cool completely for at least 2 hours.

11. Store at room temp in airtight container for 2 to 3 days for 回油. The skin should become very shiny and moist. The skin will also become darker due to the lye water. Keep in fridge with each one wrapped in cling film for up to 10 days, or freeze immediately and keep for up to 3 months. When ready to eat, bring to room temp and then lightly toast in toaster oven.

Recipe feedback

- Even though using storebought filling, it's important to fry up and add oil, as well as check freshness of the product. (Clockwise from top left: chestnut, black sesame, red bean, yam). The oil on the yam had split and wasn't the freshest. Also, chestnut, yam and red bean tended to be quite dry anyway so definitely needed the oil for mooncake.

- The first batch of dough was a total failure. Even after resting for 3.5 hours, it fell apart into crumbs when trying to massage it. When I touched it and tried to flatten it out, it cracked every which way and was impossible to work with. I think it's because of my home made lye water which was a total failure. 

- Second try seems to work because I'm using storebought lye water. The chemical constituents are different to homemade so that's probably the reason!

- It's very difficult to cover those with egg inside as they are less forgiving. To completely cover the seam, I have to push the dough upwards to close the gap. This ends up causing the filing to shift and expose the egg so when stamping the design, the egg is obvious. 

Can see the yolk poking out

- Also found that the 3:7 ratio is insufficient. It needs to be 2:3 dough:filling because baked skin is not very stretchable compared to snowskin. Have adjusted above.

- Do not rest the dough more than 2 hours. Ideally after 30 mins when it's no longer sticky to the touch. Dough becomes really dry and started to crack by the time I reached the last batch of 8 mooncakes. I had very carefully wrapped everything in plastic from filling to dough to completed mooncakes, and I had a very humid afternoon as it was raining heavily. Without which, there would even more cracking.

Cracked! After first 15 mins. Next time will reduce to 10mins first round

- The 200g could barely able to contain 2 yolks and doesn't allow a deep imprint to be left. It was ok with 1 yolk.

the 200g double yolks (clockwise from top left: red bean - lotus seed design?, yam - rose design, chestnut - peony design, black sesame - lily design

- # For some reason the 150g are really short! The 150g could more likely be a 175-180g mold. EDIT: I had mismeasured the filling by 20g and each mooncake is only 125g total. Because there was just enough dough to encase the underweighted filling, in reality, 3:7 is not viable. I've updated above.

150g red bean - fish design

150g black sesame - lily design

150g yam - lotus design

150g chestnut - peony design

- Most difficult filling to work with : black sesame. Easiest to handle when chilled hardened so form ball first then keep chilled. Next is red bean, similarly, form ball and chill. Taro and chestnut are really dry and hard so need a lot of oil when frying. The oil helps with the handling otherwise it is too hard to form balls. However, they don't retain the oil and exudes the oil after being in the fridge.

After 回油