Shanghai Walnut Mooncake 上海核桃酥月饼

Among major Chinese festivals, my love for Mid-Autumn Festival is just next to Lunar New Year. It is all attributed to my madness for mooncakes.

Every year, I start to buy mooncakes as long as they appear in the market, even one month before the festival. My mom ever joked that the mooncakes I have eaten over the years should be about the same size as me if they were piled up.

This year, the idea of baking my own mooncake popped up for the first time. After some research online, I decided to register for a baking class since it’s just two weeks away from Mid-Autumn Festival. The 4-hr hands-on session turned out to be very fruitful. In the following two weeks, I made 3 types of mooncakes at home: Snow Skin mooncakes , Cantonese style mooncakes and Shanghai walnut mooncakes. Maybe we are too used to the traditional mooncakes, Shanghai Walnut mooncake seems to be the most popular one in my family. Everyone loves it at first bite. Its pastry, which has rich buttery flavor and crumble texture, together with the salted egg yolks, moderate the sweetness of lotus paste.

You know how many mooncakes I made this Mid-Autumn Festival? Close to 100 ! They make perfect gifts for such an auspicious occasion. Other than using white lotus paste with salted egg yolks as filling, I also made some with red bean paste and melon seeds. Decorate with almond slices, these mooncakes look and taste equally good. 

                HOW TO MAKE SHANGHAI WALNUT MOONCAKE (3-MINUTE VIDEO)

SHANGHAI WALNUT MOONCAKE
Recipe from Mdm Er Teck Gin

 INGREDIENTS
(makes 24 walnut mooncakes)

Pastries:

• 360 plain flour
• 40g Custard Powder
• ½ teaspoon Sodium Bicarbonate
• 50g icing sugar
• ½ teaspoon Vanilla powder
• ½ teaspoon Ammonium  (optional)
• 1 whole egg 
• 250g salted butter 
• 150g walnuts (for decoration)

Fillings:

•  600g lotus paste or red bean paste
• 12 salted egg yolks
• toasted melon seeds

Egg wash

•  1 egg yolk with 1 tablespoon milk

DIRECTIONS

1. Prepare Fillings:
• Dip salted egg yolk in rum, and bake in oven (180degC, no preheat) for 7-10 mins until oil starts to come out.
• Wait to cool and cut in halves.
• Divide lotus or red bean paste into 30g each. Wrap in 1/2 salted egg yolk, round if off.
  
  
  
  
  
2. Prepare Pastries:
• In a large bowl, cream sugar, butter, vanilla powder and Ammonium together with an electric mixer until slightly white.
• Add in egg, mix well.
• Add in flour, custard powder and sodium bicarbonate. Knead into dough and leave for 30mins.
3. Divide dough into 30g each. Flatten the dough and wrap the lotus paste/red bean paste ball into dough.
4. Decorate with walnuts. Apply egg wash.
5. Preheat oven to 200 DegC. Bake for 15 mins or until golden brown.

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