Coloured snowskin with mungbean-inspired fillings

I had bits and pieces of ingredients lying around so decided to come up with this recipes.

Snowskin recipe comes from Souped Up Kitchen video (write-up at Curated Kitchen) because I wanted to try the effect of adding condensed milk to the snowskin. Proportions have been augmented to suit what I have lying around. I can't give measurements for the fillings because it was mostly trial and error with lots of tasting!

Ingredients for snowskin: makes fourteen 75g mooncakes comprising 25g dough and 50g filling; makes 375g dough and needs 825g of filling

55g glutinous rice flour

55g rice flour

39g wheat starch

47g icing sugar

211g liquid (e.g., milk or coconut milk in this case)

28g condensed milk

28g veg or neutral oil

31g gao fen (about 3 tbsp toasted glutinous rice flour)

Filling and skin

Original mung bean filling with sugar before adding any other ingredients: 621g

A. Filling for mocha skin with coffee and gula melaka filling (makes four 75g mooncakes)

Mocha skin: Work 1 tsp cocoa powder into 275g snowskin dough. (If making tie-dye effect, use ½tsp and work it into half of this dough)

Filling: About 200g of mung bean filling

2.5 tbsp shaved gula melaka (adjust to taste)

30g milk (may need more or less, you basically want a dry-ish slurry)

1 tbsp oil or lard

1 tsp glutinous rice flour

Pinch of salt

B. Filling for pandan skin and coffee gula melaka filling (makes ten 75g mooncakes)

Pandan skin: Work 1 drop of pandan essence into 550g snowskin dough. (If making tie-dye effect, use only stain quarter or half the dough).

Filling: About 421g of mung bean filling

6 tbsp shaved gula melaka (adjust to taste)

60-100ml coconut milk (may need more or less, you basically want a dry-ish slurry)

2.5 tbsp oil or lard

2 tsp glutinous rice flour

Pinch of salt

Method is the same for both fillings. 

1. Add mung bean to blender. Add liquid and glutinous rice flour and blend till smooth. You want a dry-ish slurry.

2. Melt the gula melaka on low flame. Once mostly melted, add the lard and mix well to combine.

3. Add the slurry and stir fry on medium low to low flame until almost dry. Use the spatula to press out any glutinous rice lumps. After 20 to 25 minutes of frying, it should be like a pliable dough that doesn't stick to the pan or spatula.

4. Allow to cool and then cover with cling film. 

5. Apportion out into 50g balls of filling. Cover with cling film and set aside.

Method for snowskin

1. Sift in flours into a microwave safe bowl. 

2. Add the sugar and condensed milk and mix well. Add in the oil and whisk well.

3. Cover the bowl and microwave in increments for around 3 to 4 minutes. The first 2 increments may be longer e.g., 1 min then 30 seconds then 10 seconds at a time until no liquid remains. Mix after each increment so that the wet parts are mixed in. 

4. Just after cooking while still hot, cut up the dough using spatula and work it until a ball. 

5. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes until it can be handled. Knead until smooth and elastic. 

6. Wrap in plastic and allow to rest at room temp between 2 to 3 hours so it is no longer sticky which makes it easier to work with.

7. While waiting, pan fry the 3 tbsp of glutinous rice flour until lightly brown (about 2 minutes). Leave to cool.

8. Apportion out the dough into 25g balls.

9. Assemble the mooncake (see video). Important to ensure no air trapped between the filling and the dough.

10. Dust the mooncake ball and mould with gao fen. Remove any excess flour. Place ball on a tray lined with parchment.

11. If using a square mold, press until you feel resistance then hold the pressure for a while to allow the dough and filling to fill up the edges of the square. Press a few more times to properly imprint the design. Unlike round moulds, I had to turn the mould upside down and carefully fit each ball into the mould so that the ball doesn't catch on the edges (and I ended up tearing the ball). And then I had carefully place mould onto the tray and make sure it was flat. Because of the pressure needed to push the mooncake into the edges and I hadn't placed the mold flatly onto the parchment, I ended up squeezing out part of the mooncake from under the mold so there was an extra lip! If you look carefully you can see the 'lips'.

12. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Eat after properly chilled ie about 3 hours or best overnight. Consume within 3 to 4 days.

See extra lip at the bottom of each of the upper 2 rows of mooncakes

Recipe feedback

- Aside from the special instructions for square moulds above, it doesn't help to include an extra gram in the filling or dough because it spills out of the mold which makes it hard to press down and produce a nice clean cube!

- I'll never use coconut oil in snowskin mooncake skin again! The unintended effect was that the cream in the coconut milk converted to oil and I had a super oily dough. I had to throw away around 1 tsp of oil and then kept dabbing the mooncake skin dry. Also because my gloves were so oily and slippery, I couldn't even roll a proper ball. I even had to massage in several tsp of gao fen but to no avail. What's worse, the oil prevented the skin from sealing properly and producing a nice flat seam. Cracks refused to heal.

- As such, I can't tell if the addition of condensed milk helped the dough texture and mouthfeel or not as it was obscured by the effect of the coconut oil.

- 25g of dough is the bare minimum amount of dough required to seal up 50g of filling. Any less and there won't be enough dough to seal the seam!

The skin is super thin!