Traditional Baked Mooncakes (广式月饼）

[vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”5114,5113,5117,5120,5115,5119,5122,5121,5123,5124″ layout=”2″ item_spacing=”default” gallery_style=”7″ load_in_animation=”none”]I started selling mooncakes when I was studying in the university to pay my way through college. Truth to be told, as I was an amateur, I’ve made too many mistakes to make a lot of money out of it. I have since learned.

Firstly, never buy egg yolks very close to the eighth lunar month, because they are extremely expensive. Buy the salted eggs fresh, remove the egg whites and freeze them a month ahead.

Secondly, if you use store bought lotus paste, they are more expensive than the salted egg yolks. And since the market price of those with more egg yolks is higher, it is more lucrative to make those with more yolks.

Making traditional Chinese or Cantonese mooncakes is really simple, if you would just invest in a few tools. The most important being the moon cake mould. When I first started making mooncakes more than three decades ago, we only had wooden ones. These days, they have plastic hand pressured ones.

I have yet tried the plastic hand pressured ones because I love the feel and the weight of the wooden moulds. I lost some of favourite moulds when moving house and managed to replace them with some bought in Hong Kong.

In making mooncakes, there are a few important things to look out for:

1. Be familiar with your mould and weigh out the dough and the filing accurately.
2. Never bake the mooncake too long or at too low a temperature or the filing will ooze out. The best I have found is to bake them for five minutes, then egg wash and then bake another 7 to 12 minutes. Nothing more.
3. If using salted egg yolks, spray them with Chinese wine to rid them of smell.
4. Soak new wooden mould with oil prior to first use, to season the wood. Always dust the mould with a good measure of flour and knock the excess out for each mooncake.

More Mooncake Recipes

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