I may have been a little over excited about the whole Mid Autumn Festival this year. This is a snow skin moon cake made mainly from corn flour, wheat starch and glutinous rice flour which are completely gluten free. Although you need to make sure that you buy the gluten free version of wheat starch as some can contain a small amount of gluten if you are coeliac and is concern about that.
This mooncake recipe is made with a mung bean base Green Tea paste and a Strawberry snow skin. There are absolutely no food colouring involved, which is great if you are making them for children and want to stir away from food colouring for them.
What is mid autumn festival?
Mid autumn festival is a festival widely celebrated by the Chinese. It is a day where family will gather and have dinner together. It is a lot like a Chinese version of a thanksgiving.
During this festival, adults will be busy buying moon cakes for relatives and friends as well as organising a huge family dinner gathering whilst the children will be anticipating for the night where they will walk around neighbourhoods in the night with paper-made lanterns.
Mid autumn festival also marks the day for moon appreciation hence why moon cake is a big thing for this festivities.
When is mid- autumn Festival this year 2020
In the year 2020, mid autumn festival falls on the 1st of October.
Recommended "consume by" time frame
It is recommended that you consume the freshly made snow skin moon cake on the day that they are made. These mooncakes can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks depending on the quality of your storage.
How to store the moon cake
If you intend to keep the moon cake to be consumed later on, it is best that you keep the moon cake in an air tight container and store them in the freezer.
Before serving, simply thawed them for a couple of hours. It is best to consume a thawed snow skin moon cake on the same day for best quality.
Rice Flour
I find that the rice flour in Australian supermarket are quite different than the ones you would get from the Asian groceries. The ones from the western supermarket tend to be coarser and drier. I would highly recommend that you use the Asian Rice Flour that contain 88% Rice and 12% water for the best result.
RECIPE
Yield: 5 Large Mooncake
Strawberry Snow Skin
50 g Glutinous Rice Flour
40 g Rice Flour (88% Rice, 12% Water)
20 g Wheat Starch
45 g Castor Sugar
185 ml Coconut Milk
20 g Vegetable Oil
6 g Freeze Dried Strawberry Powder
Green Tea Mung Bean Fillings
75 g Mung Beans (Skinned and Split)
10 g Green Tea Powder
1 g Fine salt
65 g Castor Sugar
90 g Full Cream Milk
15 ml Vegetable oil
1 tbsp. Glutinous Rice Flour
30 g Wheat Starch (for Dusting)
10 g Freeze Dried Strawberry Powder (For Dusting)
Method
For the Green Tea Mung Bean Fillings
Before proceeding, make sure that you soak the split mung bean in water covering at least 2 cm with water above the beans overnight.
1. Strained the soaked and soft mung beans.
Steam the soaked mung beans for approximately 30 minutes or until the beans are completely soft. Set aside to cool fully before placing the beans into a food processor.
2. Process the mung beans until it turns in to a smooth paste.
3. Add the rest of the ingredient in to the food process with the mung bean paste and process until combine and the paste turns smooth.
Note: Process the paste until it is as smooth as possible. If you do not have a strong processor like myself, pass it through a sieve.
4. Once the paste is smooth, transfer it into a non stick deep frying pan over medium, heat, sprinkle the glutinous rice flour and stir into the paste to combine. Keep stirring until the paste comes together into a really thick consistency.
5. Transfer the paste into a bowl and wrap with cling film touching the surface of the paste and leave to cool.
6. Once cooled, portion in to 5 x 50 g portions.
For the Snow Skin
1. Place all ingredients into a heat proof bowl and whisk until they are well combined and no lumps of flours.
2. Cover the bowl with a cling film and put over a steamer and steam at high boiling for around 25 -30 minutes or until the whole mix are thick and there are no longer any liquid.
3. Remove the bowl from the steamer and the cling film. Stir the dough with a spatula until well combine and the dough comes together in to a smooth dough. If the oil looks like it has separated from the dough, simply keep mixing until they come together.
4. Transfer the snow skin on to a cling film, wrap and store in fridge to complete cool (30 minutes to an hour) for easy handling.
5. Meanwhile the extra 30 g Wheat Starch on to a pan over low heat and stir to heat. Once the flour starts to clump together slightly, turn off the heat and leave aside until completely cools. Once cooled, toss in the freeze dried Strawberry powder and sift.
6. Portion the dough in to 5 equal portion (they should roughly weight around 65 g each)
Composition
1. Sift the cooked wheat starch with the freeze dried powder and mix until they are well incorporated.
2. Roll the snow skin in to a ball, then flatten it between your palm and stretch it until it is wide enough to wrap the filling (roughly around a female palm size).
Place the filling balls on to the centre of the snow skin, start gently pulling the edges upwards to wrap the whole filling and pinch the skin to seal.
3. Roll the the ball of moon cake on to the dusting, then roll off the excess dusting between both your palm. Make sure that they are dusted well otherwise it will not come off the moon cake mould cleanly.
4. Place the smooth side in to the mould facing where the imprint of the moulds are, gently press down and to the side.
5. Gently flip the mould upside then, press the mould gently on the top for a more obvious imprint, then press the moon cake out.
6. Place the moon cake on a card or paper and serve.
To store the moon cake, make sure you place them in an air tight container. This moon cake last for 5 days at room temperature. You can definitely store them in the fridge, however, make sure that you place a sling film gently touching the top of the moon cake to avoid condensation which can cause the skin to go wet and sticky.
