Hungry Husband: Mini Emerald Snowskin Moons

With the Lantern festival just round the corner, the prices of moon-cakes have jumped to exorbitant levels. In the past, there was always a surfeit at home, with my parents’ friends giving them ornate boxes of double-yolked baked versions, colorful snowskin ones, with all sorts of fillings- lotus paste, red bean, tiramisu. As a child, I took it for granted. This year, spending our first year as a married couple away from home meant things were different.

My mum had given us two high-grade moon-cakes from 5-star hotels in Singapore. We gave them away- one to the cleaning lady at my office who told me she had never eaten such a tasty moon-cake for the longest time; and the other to a friend who would not otherwise have had the chance to eat one either. One day, while chatting with Zhou yeye ( Grandpa Zhou, the elderly busker who sits at the train station near our home whom we’ve adopted as our god-grandpa), we thought it’d be a great idea to invite him over for tea and moon-cakes.

There was only one problem- we had no moon-cakes! We’d given them away, along with our only pack of pumpkin seeds and Chinese tea.

“Invite me to eat moon-cakes only AFTER the festival, okay? Now the prices are crazy! Later they will ALL plummet!”

It was then that I realized what a luxury eating good moon-cakes is. While most of us associate it with cloying sweetness and surplus, many long to even have a taste of it to celebrate this traditional Chinese festival.

Somewhat regretting not saving one of the high-grade moon-cakes for him, I was inspired to make some of my own. I was intimidated at first-I’m no baker! Then, I found out the snowskin versions were a significantly easier task. If they were successful, I was sure it would be a confidence booster to baking my own traditional moon-cakes (however impossible it sounded), with healthier oil (instead of lard), less sugar, more fibre-rich nuts and jam-packed with love.

 

And successful they were! And fun to make too! If you’re worried of failing because you’re not quite the baker, here’s sharing some quick and easy steps to making your very matcha green tea snowskin moon-cakes with red bean paste and hazelnuts! (Yes, they give these sweet treats a beautiful texture and flavor, especially if you’re not a fan of pumpkin seeds!) It’s really much easier than it sounds. If I could do it, I believe anyone can!

 

Matcha green tea snowskin mooncake with red bean paste and hazelnuts

 

Food for Love:

 1. Cheat sheet: There’s such a thing called Pre-mix! You can get these snowskin moon-cake pre-mix flours from a Chinese baking store. I got mine from Phoon Huat, a bakery chain in Singapore. Start with 100g for 8 mini moon-cakes. Alternatively, if you’d like to start from scratch, 75g cooked glutinous rice flour and 50g icing sugar will do the same trick.

 

2. Shortening, 40g. This is the magic that makes your moon-cake skin wonderfully elastic. I got the zero-transfat version with 50% reduced saturated fat. (C’mon, if you’re going to make your own, you might as well make the healthier version!)

 Tip: Saturated fats and trans-fats lower the levels of “good cholesterol” and increase the levels of “bad cholesterol” in one’s body, which increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Look out for unsaturated fats in healthier oils like canola, soya bean and peanut oils, which contribute to the “good fats” in your body.

 3. Cold water, 30g. Simply put a few ice cubes in the water and allow them to melt.

4. Green tea/matcha powder– mix this into the cold water. For variety, try mixing coffee powder (3-in-1 works fine too) into the cold water. I’ve read that you can replace the cold water with cranberry juice as well for the rose-pink colors. As you can tell, I’m not a fan of synthetic coloring.

5. White lotus or red bean paste, 360g. There are even sugarless versions for the super health conscious, which taste great too. I got a pack of red bean paste (they didn’t have the sugar-less version for this one) to suit Cliff’s and my dad’s taste, and a pack of sugarless pandan lotus paste, which tastes really, really lovely.

 

 

Food for Beauty:

 

 6. You need a pretty moon-cake mould! (It can go as cheaply as 80 cents!)

 

 

The Act:

Sit back, because you won’t believe how easy & relaxing this is!

 1. Sieve the premix flour (or flour and sugar if you’re starting from scratch) into a bowl and rub the shortening in until a crumbly mixture forms. Add cold water (with the green tea powder already dissolved) to the mixture and knead it gently to form a soft dough.

I must confess my blunder- I had totally forgot about the green tea powder until I realized I was kneading an ivory-colored dough. Thank goodness it was redeemable!

 

2. Leave the dough in the fridge for 10 to 15 minutes. This helps to firm up the dough so it’s easier to manage.

I must finally confess- This whole moon-cake endeavour started from… painting! I was practicing some watercolor techniques when I got bored of waiting for the underlayer to dry- so I decided to get busy in the kitchen in the meantime, vacillating back and forth between our self-transformed “art room” and the kitchen. I promise you, I washed my hands scrupulously in between! 

 

 

3. In the meantime, you can er… paint, or rather, toast some pumpkin seeds or other nuts in the toaster just for a few minutes and let them cool. According to Cliff’s verdict, the hazelnuts really add a beautiful nutty texture to the sweet tread.  Nuts also contain lots of healthy fats as well, though they can be high in calories if eaten excessively. Use your hands and fold  the cooled nuts into the red bean or lotus paste.

 

 

4. While waiting for the nuts to cool, use a weighing scale (which I didn’t have, but which Cliff thankfully reminded me to get and made a U-turn to do so- just a cheap $10 one will do. I figured we didnt need a $35 digital one), divide the snowskin dough into roughly 20g pieces. 

 

 

 

5. Then, divide the nutty red bean paste into roughly 30g portions. Shape them into balls.  Easy enough, right? 

 

 

6. I was really worried about the shaping and moulding bit. After all, good moon-cakes are prettily wrapped in paper-thin skins. I was pretty sure that with this being my first attempt, I would end up making callous, thick bun-like treats with a little tiny filling in the centre. 

Not true! The first mini-mooncake popped out beautifully. The secret in wrapping the balls is this simple:

Form 5cm-round discs and wrap them around the filling.

 

Whenever you feel like there will be insufficient skin to cover the lovely filling, take heart!

The shortening makes the skin so pliable and smooth that you can deftly seal the seams with a little handiwork. This creates a gorgeous dark red-bean crimson peeking through the emerald skin when moulded- just lovely! 

 

 

7. Dust the moon-cake mould and your hands with some flour. Cliff chose this beautiful pink mould for me- a great deal for 80 cents! By the time I got to Phoon Huat, only a few moulds were left. Cliff, knowing that I had been very excited about this creative endeavor, made a special trip to meet me there after work to help me lug the heavy loot back. I had wished he would pick the traditional wooden mould, but it cost $15 and well, when I had trouble knocking the moon-cakes out, how thankful I was for the light plastic one instead of the heavy wooden mould! (though Cliff did say it could have doubled up nicely as a wooden bat to hit him when he was naughty, heh.) 

 

 

I’m glad he didn’t pick the wooden one- it’s a lot harder to use. I would have picked the mould with the plunger mechanism where you can pop out the moon-cake instead of knocking it out with a great deal dramatic flair and effort, except that the design of it was terribly ugly, with only plain stripes instead of the ornate flower patterns!

For ease, dust the mould lightly. A dreamy snowed-in effect is created when you do so (moon-cake at 9 o’clock position), just don’t overdo it! Knocking the moon-cakes out also takes a great deal of patience-  I damaged 3 of them, but thankfully restored their dignity when I simply reshaped them into balls n tried again. Do not take failure as an answer! 

 

8. Store the little babies up to a week in the fridge. Before serving them with a hot cup of Chinese tea, leave it under room temperature for 15 minutes to soften. 

 

 

9. Voila! Your very own mooncakes! Who needs to buy them when you can make them- it’s really that quick and simple! So at the end of the morning, I had a finished a painting and set of jade mini-moonies. 

 

Try it yourself!

(Will share the recipe for the traditional moon-cake if I can get round to trying it and succeeding.)

 

Happy Lantern Festival!