Egg
Easy Mooncakes
- Prep time 1 hour
- Cook time 30 minutes
- makes 8 pieces
Author Notes
Mooncakes are Chinese pastries made and eaten during Mid-Autumn Festival. They come in a variety of fillings like lotus paste and red bean, and in the middle, there’s often a salted egg yolk (sometimes two!) to symbolize the moon. To those unfamiliar with mooncakes, they might seem like one tricky pastry to make, with intricate patterns that often adorn their tops. And fact is, they do require a special mold to make, and do take some deft technique to get right. But for the average home baker like myself, there’s actually a variant of these festive bites that are simpler and quicker to whip up. And they’re called Shanghai mooncakes!
Yes, you’ll still need salted eggs and lotus paste for these, as is the traditional filling for any mooncake. (Although red bean paste or mung bean paste would work too.) While not common in much of Western cuisine, these ingredients are available at many Asian grocers, especially when Mid-Autumn Festival nears. These two nicher ingredients aside though, the rest of the ingredient list consists of pantry staples. So gather them up, and you’ll be ready to make mooncakes.
Shanghai mooncakes start off identical to traditional mooncakes — crack the salted eggs, cook the yolks, and wrap the yolks in lotus paste. But where traditional mooncakes wrap this lotus paste-salted egg filling in a lye water-based dough that’s then squished into a mold to shape, Shanghai mooncakes use a butter-based dough that’s akin to sweet pastry dough (or pâte sucrée). So just rub butter, flour, cornstarch, sugar, and salt together, bind it with egg and knead it, then you can wrap the salted egg-lotus paste balls in it.
Give it a 30-minute bake, and you’ll get these gleaming, golden pastry balls that taste sweet and savory with a floral, nutty tinge from the lotus paste, just like the best mooncakes. And when you cut them in half, you’ll see the moon! Happy Mid-Autumn, everyone! —Jun
Ingredients
-
1⅔ cups
(200g) all-purpose flour
-
3 tablespoons
(30g) cornstarch
-
2 tablespoons
(25g) caster sugar
-
½ teaspoons
(3g) salt
-
1
stick (113g) unsalted butter
-
2
large eggs, divided
-
1
egg yolk
-
8
salted egg yolks
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10 ounces
(283g) lotus paste
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1 tablespoon
white sesame seeds, to garnish
Directions
- Put the all-purpose flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt, and butter in a large bowl, then mix everything together, rubbing the butter into the dry ingredients until sandy. Add in one full egg, an egg yolk, and knead everything together until they come together into a smooth dough. If the dough is very flaky and doesn’t come together at this point, add a bit of water to it, a teaspoon at a time. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, place the salted egg yolks on a small plate or tray, and steam this over high heat for 10 minutes. Alternatively, you can also bake this for 10 minutes in an oven set to 320°F (160°C). When done, take the salted egg yolks out of the steamer or oven, and let it cool to room temperature.
- Divide the lotus paste into 35g pieces. Then, roll each piece into a ball. Working with one piece at a time, use your palm and fingers to flatten the lotus paste ball into a disc roughly 3 inches in diameter. Place the salted egg yolk in the middle of the disc, and fully wrap the egg yolk in the lotus paste. Once completely covered, gently roll it to smoothen it out into a ball. Repeat for the rest of the egg yolks and lotus paste.
- Heat an oven to 350°F (177°C). Line a baking tray with baking paper or a silicon mat.
- Divide the dough into 50g pieces and roll them into balls. Then, working with one piece of dough at a time, roll the dough with a rolling pin into a disc at least 4 inches in diameter. Then, wrap the dough around a lotus paste salted egg yolk ball, pinching the ends together to completely enclose the ball. Give it a roll to make it a smooth ball, then place on the lined baking tray. Repeat for the rest of the dough pieces.
- Crack and beat the remaining 1 egg in a bowl. Brush the top half of the mooncakes with this eggwash. Then, take a pinch of sesame seeds and sprinkle it on top of the mooncakes. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.
- When the mooncakes are fully baked, take them out of the oven and let cool to room temperature. Then, eat! These can keep well for up to 3 days in an airtight container at room temperature, or up to a week in the fridge.
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