Traditional White Lotus Paste Mooncake with Melon Seeds

After many months of hesitation and delay, I finally get down my hands onto making mooncake since the season is coming.

I have adapted the recipe from the link (http://www.noobcook.com/traditional-baked-mooncakes/ ) and have done some changes/modifications to the recipe to cater to my volume of mooncakes that I wanted.

Below is my revised recipe:

Baked 23-24 of 50g mooncakes

Mooncake Filling:

840 grams of ready made white lotus paste
50 grams of melon seeds
20ml of peanut oil

Mooncake Dough:
140 grams of golden syrup
1 tsp alkaline water
50ml of peanut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
200 grams of sifted plain flour

Egg wash:
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp water

Tools/Extra Ingredients:
50g mini mooncake mould
Plain flour for dusting rolling pin, hands, dough and the dusting work surface.


Mooncake crust

1.Combine the golden syrup,alkaline water ,peanut oil and vanilla extract in a large bowl and mix well.

2.Add the sifted flour into the mixture to form a soft dough. Avoid over kneading of the dough.

3.Wrap the dough with cling wrap and put it aside for 2.5 hours.

4.After waiting for 2.5hours, dust the dough with some flour and do some kneading to make it smooth . Divide the dough into portions , each weighing 15 g and  rolled into a ball. Put aside.

Filling Paste

5. Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius. Toast the melon seeds in the oven for around 8 minutes. Occasionally, shake the tray to ensure even heating. Allow to cool.

6. Mix the melon seeds into the lotus paste using your hands. Mix well.

7. Add the peanut oil into the mixture.Divide the paste into portions of 35grams each and rolled into a ball . The number of filling paste balls to follow the number of mooncake dough balls made earlier on.

Making the mooncakes:

1. Dust the dough, mooncake mould and hand with some flour. Flatten the dough(you can use a rolling pin if you like but I used my palm to flatten it) and try to ensure the skin is of equal thickness as much as possible . Wrap the mooncake dough around the ball of filling paste.

2. Lightly dust the wrapped mooncake dough with some flour and place it in the mooncake mould and press firmly. Invert the mould and push out to obtain the 'to be baked' mooncake . Put the 'to be baked' mooncake onto the tray (the tray to be lined with baking paper and with some oil spread across the baking paper). Repeat till all the dough are used up.

3. Baked the moon cakes into the preheated oven of 180 degrees celsius for 10 mins. Remove from oven and put aside to cool for 20 mins.

4.After 20 mins, brush the mooncakes with egg wash. Put the mooncakes into the oven again and bake for another 10 mins/ until the mooncakes have turned golden  brown.

5. Let the mooncakes cool and store the mooncakes in an airtight container for 2-3 days . Serve after the mooncakes have been left aside for 2-3 days for the oil to surface and soften the mooncake crust.