Snowskin Custard Mooncake

Snowskin custard mooncakes

This post is a submission for Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011) hosted by Happy Home Baking.

First ever attempt at mooncakes.... chose snowskin mooncake as I love anything with glutinous rice/ flour and the custard filling because my ma loves custard filled things :) I also left out the lotus paste/ red bean paste for these as was aiming for something a bit lighter (apparently the large mooncakes available in Asia come in at around 1600 calories a piece....)

The first batch in a weekend of mooncake making and these are definitely the easiest to do. And the most yummy as voted by my friends and family. The custard has a slight coconutty flavour from the coconut milk which went down very well.

Once made, keep in an airtight container in the fridge, they will last a couple of days.

I adapted this recipe. Used a half quantity of the snowskin (no colouring/ flavouring and a touch less sugar) and combined with the full recipe for the custard which made about 20 mooncakes. Custard can be made in advance - I made mine the day before.

Equipment
The amount of mooncakes made will depend on the size of mould used (**doh**). I used a small mooncake mould bought off of ebay from these lovely people. They are based in Penang, Malaysia which is not only the best place for food IN THE ENTIRE WORLD but also my family's hometown (both my mother's and father's side) and therefore an official source of global awesomeness. They are also really friendly and were very patient with me when I asked a heap of questions :)

Digital scales - if you have these, use the most accurate that you have. This will ensure that all the mooncakes are a nice even size. As I used a small mould, I found that even slight overfilling - an extra 5g or 10g, resulted in mooncakes that did not hold their shape well.

  • Ingredients
Snowskin
70g cooked glutinous rice flour
25ml milk
50g icing sugar
22g butter
85ml ice water
Custard
20g custard powder
1 egg yolk
55ml coconut milk
80ml milk
100g sugar (recipe says superfine, I just used granulated)
30g melted butter
25g all-purpose/ plain flour
25g cornflour
Method for Custard
Combine all ingredients except for butter in a mixing bowl and mix well.
Stir in melted butter.
Place the bowl over a pan of water (i.e. double boiler).
Gently heat the mixture, whisking frequently, until cooked.
The custard should be fairly thick - thick enough to be moulded into balls.
Sieve custard if lumpy - as I whisked a lot, this was not necessary for me.
Keep in fridge covered until ready for use.
Method for Snowskin
Rub the butter into the cooked glutinous rice flour and icing sugar (similar to crumble technique).
Mix in the milk and iced water and knead lightly until smooth dough is formed.
Add more glutinous rice flour if dough is too wet/ liquid if dough is too dry (exact recipe will vary according to humidity).
Assembly
If you know your mould, weigh out and shape into balls, the filling/ snowskin, using a ratio of anywhere between 1:1 to 1:4. Apparently 1:4 is the expert ratio. The higher the ratio of filling to dough, the harder it will be to wrap.

For my mould, I used 15g snowskin to 25g custard.

Flatten a ball of snowskin, place a ball of custard in the middle and wrap the custard, carefully tearing off excess if there is much. The aim is to have the snowskin very thin and as even as possible.

Use cooked glutinous rice flour to make handling easier as using other flours may give the mooncake a raw flour taste as these mooncakes will not be cooked.

Repeat until all the snowskin/ custard is used up. (If you are using your mould for the first time, just make one and test the mould to see if you like the ratio/ size).

Here many recipes recommend dusting the mooncake with cooked glutinous rice flour to help prevent sticking. I found this wasn't really necessary, and in practice found that dusting the mooncake with a very light dusting of flour was more effective. When I dusted the mould, flour seemed to congregate in the imprints which then got onto the mooncake, which still stuck to the sides of the mould.

Push the ball firmly into the mooncake mould.

Unmould (you may have to whack it out... don't be scared!).

Refrigerate for half an hour.

Serve cold.... and Bengawan Solo won't seem so far away :)