But a fun one at that.
Today me and Fi decided to try our hand on making...drum roll please...snowskin mooncakes!
Skeptical? Here is the evidence!
And we were not just posing!
It's all in the name of research! As we explore what's next for A Sweet Cause - our little home kitchen bake-a-thon charity group that we work hard at keeping alive. Especially since we're going to be losing one of our key members, Dorine, to the foggy fantasia that is London. Sadness. Who's going to bake those glorious melt-in-your-mouth macadamia + dried strawberries + white chocolate chip cookies?! Who am I going to call for a perfect home-cooked brunch. I am just devastated.
 |
| The process summarised! |
Anyway, it was quite an experience, and I learnt a few things:
- Snow skin mooncakes are not cooked / baked / steamed. In fact, if you have all the products purchased, and can't be bothered / are not confident enough to make your own lotus seed paste, all you need is a kettle, weighing scale, the ingredients, a clean dry work surface, a rolling pin and mooncake molds.
- There is something called "fried" glutinous rice flour, aka Hong Kong glutionous rice flour or "gao fan" (I think). This is the only flour you should be using.
- Past experience playing with Play Dough will come in very useful. Even the mooncake molds remind me of my childhood PD days.
- Deal.com.sg is legit. Yey.
- Mooncake making isn't as complicated as it sounds, and it is quite a lot of fun.
 |
| How it all started. A deal on Deal.com.sg which we pounced on! |
Achieving mochi-like gooeyness...
This is probably the part with the largest margin for error.
 |
| At the beginning... |
It involves you adding hot water to sieved "gao fan", icing sugar, shortening and the flavoring ingredient (i.e. green tea powder if you are making green tea snow skin, or yuzu paste if you are making yuzi snow skin and etc).
This is a simple yet tricky process and you must avoid adding too much water.
 |
| Our dough, which we childishly nicknamed "Jerry". |
The aim is to get a mochi-like bounce to your dough, that is a slight bit gooey from that little bit of added moisture.
 |
| Working on Jerry! |
It is a delicate balance, and once it is achieved, leave the dough to "rest"; ideally overnight, but that obviously did not happen at the class.
"Resting" allows the moisture to evenly disseminate and work it's magic, allowing the mochi-like dough to gain a little bit more bounce and firmness.
 |
| Jerry finally gets to "rest" for a bit. |
Well-rested, we started packing it in...
The rest is pretty straight-forward, particularly as pre-made and purchased lotus seed paste was used.
You roll the lotus seed paste into little balls and then envelope them in rolled-out pieces of dough so that they look like floury mega xiao long baos.
Following which you carefully yet firmly stuff them into the mooncake molds, and voila! Out comes your snowskin mooncake!
 |
| We were lucky enough to get the one and only Hello Kitty mold! |
At this point of the class, I experienced a jaunting wave of "that-is-it-ness"at the realization that our class required more assembly rather than what I would consider real "cooking" / baking.
Still...aren't they pretty?! ... and hopefully delicious. We will see tomorrow, as we were advised to let them settle a bit in the fridge before consumption.
Although we have to figure out a way to prevent the lotus paste from becoming this oily...
If only they were this easy to multiply:
So there you go!
Snow skin mooncakes. For A Sweet Cause...maybe. We'll see!
Before I hit the sack, a wanted to share with you one last tip...looking for a good variety of mooncake ingredients / supplies?
Apparently this the go-to place:
Kwong Cheong Thye
61-63 Lorong 27
Geylang off Sims Ave
Singapore 388187
Tel: (65) 6748 0128
Have fun! And GOOD NIGHT!
No comments:
Post a Comment