This post was supposed to go up last week; however, my website went down.
In my [ridiculously] optimistic way of thinking, my first idea was that a post had gone viral and hundreds – no THOUSANDS – of hits had caused my site to crash!!!
Even while this thought occurred to me, I knew that it wasn’t the case!!! Just some sort of glitch that my husband was able to fix this weekend. I am so lucky that he knows how to help me with some of this technical stuff that I don’t understand at all!!
Anyway, he got it up and running just in time for me to post this recipe for mooncakes since today is the Supermoon!!!
You may be asking what is a mooncake?
Well, it is a traditional Chinese sweet served for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Honestly, I have never had a one myself, but I fell in love with how they look!
From my research, it seems that Chinese mooncakes are a lot like fruitcake – very traditional, and yet most people don’t like them!!
So, I set about finding a recipe that could be used with the mooncake molds, but be more “western” in its flavor profile.
The recipe is from the Rasa Malaysia website. Click here for the recipe.
Essentially, it is a pate brisee crust filled with fruit jam.
(Pate brisee is just pie crust enriched with egg yolks – although this recipe sweetens it with a little condensed milk)
First you make the pineapple filling.
Then, using a cookie scoop, scoop out a ball of the pastry dough and then roll it out.
Next, place a teaspoon of the pineapple jam into the center (I used a teaspoon-size cookie scoop)
Carefully fold it over the filling. There is absolutely NO stretch to this dough, so you have to be gentle with it.
Then pinch up all of the sides and make sure that no jam is spilling out of any cracks.
And now for the fun part!
Place the mooncake mold over the ball and press down.
I seriously had SO MUCH fun doing this part. It was just so amazing to turn out something so beautiful with just the push of a handle!
The recipe said to apply an egg wash, which I did.
Am I the only one who has trouble getting egg washes to look right? Inevitably I get it too thick or too thin, or not even enough.
Anyway, when I make these next time, I am going to see how they look without the egg wash.
Since traditional mooncakes use a different dough, mine cracked a little bit, but they still turned out really beautiful!
If you have ever had Barras de Pina, (Mexican pineapple bars sold at grocery stores), these are very similar. Although, the pineapple filling in these was softer than in the Barras de Pina.
Next time I am going to try filling them with guava paste. I think that would be delicious!
These mooncake molds can also be used as a cookie press. I tried it out and they worked flawlessly!
Mooncake molds can be purchased on Amazon.
I think I have a new obsession!!!