Mid-Autumn Festival-Ready Mooncakes Recipe

Mooncakes are a traditional Chinese dessert offered during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Families get together to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, and there are feasts, lots of lights, lanterns, and candles everywhere. Mooncake, as the name implies, is a treat eaten to commemorate the year's fullest and brightest moon. 

Mooncakes are typically cooked with salted duck yolks and red bean or lotus seed paste to symbolize the full moon, and a sweet baked dough on the outside. The only ingredient in this recipe is red bean paste, but you are welcome to be inventive and substitute your preferred nut or seed paste. However, mooncake molds, which are readily available online, are required for this recipe.

Ingredients

• For Lye Water:

• For the Egg Wash:

• For the Mooncakes:

Procedure

• Creating the Lye Water 

1. Assemble the ingredients. 
2. In a small pot, mix the water and baking soda. 
3. Using a high heat, bring to a boil. Boiling will continue for around 7 minutes after heat is reduced to medium. 
4. Keep an eye on the saucepan to make sure the water doesn't fully boil away before setting aside to cool. 

• Creating the Dough

1. Assemble the ingredients. 
2. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the cake flour, salt, vegetable oil, and 1/2 teaspoon lye water alternative. 
3. Beat the mixture until it forms a ball at medium-low speed. 
4. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes after wrapping it in plastic. 
5. The red bean paste should be put in a small basin. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes with the lid on. 
6. Spray a little cooking spray in the interim onto your work area, then wrap it in plastic. The plastic wrap will adhere better thanks to the oil. The plastic wrap makes handling the sticky dough much simpler. To avoid stickiness, it helps to use latex gloves or grease your hands. 
7. Six equal portions of the cold dough should be made. Form a ball out of each serving. 
8. Six equal quantities of red bean paste should be made. Form a ball out of each serving. 
9. Sprinkle some flour over the plastic wrap's top. 
10. Place a ball of red bean paste in the center of each dough ball after flattening each into a disk that is about 1/4 inch thick. 
11. The dough should be wrapped around the paste and sealed by pinching it together. 
12. Form a hefty, homogeneous, smooth ball. 
13. Sprinkle flour inside a mooncake mold. 
14. Put the filled dough ball in the mold and press it down to fill it. 
15. Unmold the mooncake onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Continue with the remaining pieces. Space out each mooncake by at least 2 inches. 
16. For around 10 minutes, freeze the baking sheet of mooncakes. While baking, freezing will assist the mooncake maintain its shape and appearance. 

• Creating the Egg Wash 

1. Assemble the ingredients.
2. The oven should be preheated to 375 degrees with a rack in the middle. 
3. In a little bowl, whisk together the milk, salt, egg, and egg yolks. 

• Baking the Mooncakes

1. Apply a light coat of egg wash with a pastry brush to the mooncakes' tops and sides. 
2. Apply a second brush of egg wash and repeat. 
3. Bake the mooncakes for 15 to 19 minutes, or until golden brown. 
4. Before removing from the baking pan and serving, allow to cool fully.

And that's it! You can serve these delicious mooncakes to your family for the Mid-Autumn Festival! 

Feeling a little extra?

Celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival with these new design from Milk N Babble -- Jade Rabbit in the Moon Palace Shirt! This would surely turn heads when you go out to celebrate this event! Stay tuned!