Snowy Moon Cake 2015

This year I used Junsome's recipe for the dough. Compare to my recipe last year, this dough is softer.

Ingredients:

Glutinous rice flour (糯米粉) - 135g
Rice flour (粘米粉)- 105g
Wheat starch (小麦澄粉) - 60g
Milk - 555g
Corn oil - 54g
Powdered sugar - 150g
For filling
 - Green bean, red bean, lotus seed, purple yam, chocolate, strawberry, green tea, pumpkin
 - Or other creative choices
For handling
- Some cooked glutinois rice flour
Optional
 - Green tea power to make green tea flavored skin - 2 TBSP
 - Coco powder to make chocolate flavored skin
 - Food color to make different color skin
Also need 50g moon cake mold.

      

Steps:

1. Mix all ingredients in a microwaveable bowl and let it sit for 30 minutes.

2. Cook mixture in microwave for 5 minutes or until it is cooked. Take the bowl out to stir the mixture during the period if needed. This can also be done with steamer. Cover the bowl when you steam.

3. Knead the dough thoroughly until smooth. Add green tea powder or other optional color and knead until the color is consistent.

4. Use kitchen scale to weight fillings and round them balls; weigh skin dough and round them to balls. For a 50g moon cake mold, the proportion of filling vs. skin is about 1:1. So you can do 25:25 or 30g:20g if you want less skin.
5. Flatten a skin ball gently on your palm, put in a filling ball.
6. Wrap the filling with the skin. Use one hand to hold the rim of the skin, and another hand to push the filling down gently. Rotate the ball until the filling is fully wrapped.
7. Coat the moon cake ball with cooked glutinous rice flour so that it will not stick to the mold.
7. Place the ball on a smooth surface, prefer glass; place the moon cake mold over the ball; push down the plunger hard to get the moon cake in shape.

8. Put moon cake in sealed container, and chill the moon cake in refrigerator overnight.

Getting colorful

Red Bean Puff Pastry(红豆酥)

This is adapted from Junsome's Lotus Seed Pastry recipe. It does use lark or clarified butter and the result is good.

Ingredients

【Skin A】:
-  All purpose flour - 150g
-  Butter - 60g
- Sugar - 40g
- Water - 40g
【Skin B】:
- Cake flour - 90g
- Corn oil - 45ml
【Filling】:
- Red bean pastry filling
- Or other pastry filling such as green bean, lotus seed, or purple yam
【Coating】:
- Egg yolk wash - 1 egg yolk + 1 TBSP water, mix well
- Sesame seeds

Steps

1. Melt the butter with microwave
2. Add all ingredients for Skin A to warm butter. Knead to smooth dough, and let it sit for 20 minutes.
3. Mix ingredients for skin B into a dough, and let it sit for 15 minutes.
4. Portion the dough A and dough B into 16 balls each.

5. Wrap each dough B into dough A, and round it to a ball.

6. Use a rolling pin and roll the dough into oval shape, then fold the skin two times.

7. Repeat step 6 for two more times. Then roll the dough into a round skin, wrap in the pastry filling.

8. Brush the pastry with egg yolk wash. (Optional: you can also sprinkle with sesames).

9. Bake in preheated 390°F(200°C) oven for 25 minutes.

Daisy Birthday Cake

This is cake for a friend's daughter. The recipe is following Chiffon cake with strawberries and cream. The whipped cream frosting does not hold color very well; the color tends to bleach to the surrounding surface. In order to have more vibrant design, I used the whipped cream frosting for base, and buttercream frosting for the daisy and vines.

With the half sheet cake left, I made strawberry mouse cake. This look good for a party desert platter.

Moon cake filling - Pumpkin (Kabocha)

Kabocha is an Asian variety of winter squash. It is commonly called Japanese pumpkin.

Steps:

1. Cut one pumpkin to large pieces, steam until they are soft.
2. Blend the cooked pumpkin in a blender.
3. In a large fry pan, add 6 TBSP of butter, pumpkin puree, 4 TBSP sweetened condensed milk, 1/4 cup sugar(or more for sweeter taste), simmer together. Gradually add approximately 3 TBSP of corn starch and cook until the mixture can be easily folded with spatula.

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Moon cake filling - Chocolate, Green tea, and Strawberry

The northern beans taste bland and are beige-colored. It is a good medium to make different flavor moon cake fillings.

Make the white bean paste

This is same as making green bean paste, or red bean paste.

Ingredients:

Dried Northern Bean - 1 bag, 14oz (400g)
Butter - 45g
Oil - 45g
Sugar - 0.5 Cup (you can add more sugar later when you are adjusting the flavor)
Sweetened condensed milk - 4 TBSP
Corn starch - 3 TBSP

Steps:

1. Soak the beans overnight in water.

2. Boiling until the beans are soft. After cooked, drain excessive water if possible.
3. Mix the cooked bean with blender to make sure it is smooth. Stir in sugar, oil, sweetened condensed milk.

4. In a large fry pan, add butter. When butter is melted, pour in the mixture and simmer under low heat. Gradually sift in corn starch with flour sifter until the mixture can be folded with spatula easily.

5. Take mixture out of fry pan and let it cool down. Chill it in refrigerator. If you do not plan to use it within a day, you can put it in sealed container in freezer.

Get Creative

Pour the white bean paste in an electrical mixer, then start to add different flavors, a teaspoon at a time. If the paste gets too dry, add some corn oil; if the paste is not sweet enough, add powdered sugar. If the paste gets too slushy, you may need to simmer it again in a frying pan, and add more corn starch. 

Chocolate filling: 

Add coco powder

Green tea filling: 

Add green tea powder

Mocha filling: 

Add coco powder and instant coffee powder.

Strawberry filling: 

Blend in some strawberry jam during step 3 and reduce the amount of sugar used, depends on the sweetness of your jam. 

Graduation Cake

My nephew graduated from Berkeley, so I am tasked to make a cake to celebrate.

1. Make two 9" green tea chiffon cake

Egg - 10 Large
Cake flour - 150g
Green tea powder - 24g
Oil - 80g
Milk - 80g
Sugar - 120g for egg white
Sugar - 60g for egg yolk

2. Make the graduation cap.
2a. For template of the top, I cut a cardboard in 5"x5" square.  Melt some black candy melt in microwave, following instruction on the package.

2b. Then spread the melt candy on parchment paper. Flatten it with knife. It should be bigger than you cardboard square. Put the parchment paper in refrigerator for 3 minutes.

2c. Take out your candy melt, use your template and executive knife to trim the candy melt into 5"x5" square. Put the square back to refrigerator for another 3 minute to firm up.

2d. Take a muffin and trim it. Cut the top to  slope.

2e. If you have buttercream frosting, you can coat the muffin with black buttercream. I just melted some black candy melt and coated the cap bottom. Then put the square top on. Put the whole cap assembly in refrigerator for > 6 minutes.

2f. For the tussles, I took some blue and gold fondant and roll them into thin strings, then put a few together as tussles.

3. Make green tea whipped cream
4 cup of heavy cream
1 cup of powdered sugar
1 bag of gelatin
2 TBSP of green tea powder
Whipped into frosting.

4. Put it together.
First coat the cake with whipped cream frosting. Then place the cap on top. The color of Berkeley is gold and blue. So I used gold and blue frosting for borders and letters. The bear is a cut out using blue fondant.