snowflake has come back from her epic holiday, and she has brought back with her my long awaited mooncake mould (HKD $30, instead of AUD$25 here)... so i have ventured out into mooncake making mode - and began mooncake making mark II... i started off with home make red bean paste (yes! from scratch - using 450g red bean, 350g sugar, 240mL peanut oil). first, i soaked the red bean overnight, then soaked it more the next morning with hot water. then, i microwaved the beans in water just covering them for 10-min cycles. i did a cycle then rest, then another and rest again, allwoing the beans to soften. at the end of 2-3 cycles, the beans were soft but i had to pick out the non-soaked ones before i blended it with sugar and oil in the food processor. then, it was time to stir-fry on high heat. bubbling away was great gushes of steam and the red bean paste condensed and reduced in volume - it took me 15-20 mins of elbow grease... the yummy paste was left to cool down (and it hardened abit more)...
now... it was time for the "bing pei"... and to complement the red bean filling, i did a green tea bing pei. first it was rubbing 160g icing sugar with 25g soft butter to make it into bread crumb consistency... 2 tsp of green tea powder is then dissolved into 175mL warm water and filtered and added into the sugar mix. in another bowl, there was 110g kao fan (COOKED glutinous rice flour - not the standard g r flour!), milk powder 2-3 tbsp, 50g cornflour. the dry bits were mixed into the wet bit and a ball of green dough formed. this was let stand for 10 min, then microwaved in 1 min burst (and kneaded after each time) until cooked - took me 3 cycles...
then it is time to roll a small ball of green dough - less than 80g...
and a ball of red bean paste accompanying...
RBP was embedded into the green dough (v tricky to make it even!)... and coated with dry kao fan...
... before moulded into the wooden round mooncake mould... the trick to dislodge it was to wack it once on all sides and slowly slide it out without distorting the shape... but sometimes the mooncake decorative markings were not v distintive and cannot be seen easily... esp when the dough relaxed and the pattern flattened out... anyway it tasted the same though - yummy!!
the end of the session there were 8 RBGT mooncakes... yes the 8th one has already been...
cut and eaten (half of it anyway...) note: the bing pei = v uneven! and quite rustic! must try again to perfect the rolling dough technique...
lets cross-section another RBGT... and this one was more even...
considering these sell for up to $8-10 per mooncake in the shops... i was able to make $80-100 worth of mooncake with $6-8 (price of raw ingredients)... bargain!! and yummy!!
back to mooncake mark I: the salted eggs are still maturing, but i had to make another batch of dried pork (to put in with the 5-nut mooncake)... so here it goes, 3 kg of fatty pork...
yielded just under 2 kg of pork jerky (which retails for $40/kg in the shops)... and it costs $18 per 2kg home-made, and no MSG, no presevatives too! what a bargain! yum!! and here's the secret recipe...
now... it was time for the "bing pei"... and to complement the red bean filling, i did a green tea bing pei. first it was rubbing 160g icing sugar with 25g soft butter to make it into bread crumb consistency... 2 tsp of green tea powder is then dissolved into 175mL warm water and filtered and added into the sugar mix. in another bowl, there was 110g kao fan (COOKED glutinous rice flour - not the standard g r flour!), milk powder 2-3 tbsp, 50g cornflour. the dry bits were mixed into the wet bit and a ball of green dough formed. this was let stand for 10 min, then microwaved in 1 min burst (and kneaded after each time) until cooked - took me 3 cycles...
then it is time to roll a small ball of green dough - less than 80g...
and a ball of red bean paste accompanying...
RBP was embedded into the green dough (v tricky to make it even!)... and coated with dry kao fan...
... before moulded into the wooden round mooncake mould... the trick to dislodge it was to wack it once on all sides and slowly slide it out without distorting the shape... but sometimes the mooncake decorative markings were not v distintive and cannot be seen easily... esp when the dough relaxed and the pattern flattened out... anyway it tasted the same though - yummy!!
the end of the session there were 8 RBGT mooncakes... yes the 8th one has already been...
cut and eaten (half of it anyway...) note: the bing pei = v uneven! and quite rustic! must try again to perfect the rolling dough technique...
lets cross-section another RBGT... and this one was more even...
considering these sell for up to $8-10 per mooncake in the shops... i was able to make $80-100 worth of mooncake with $6-8 (price of raw ingredients)... bargain!! and yummy!!
back to mooncake mark I: the salted eggs are still maturing, but i had to make another batch of dried pork (to put in with the 5-nut mooncake)... so here it goes, 3 kg of fatty pork...
yielded just under 2 kg of pork jerky (which retails for $40/kg in the shops)... and it costs $18 per 2kg home-made, and no MSG, no presevatives too! what a bargain! yum!! and here's the secret recipe...
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