月福 wishes to all

It's Mid-Autumn festival today.  I will just do a quick post to share what I have been up to this season and also to wish everyone lots of 月福 with this Nespresso Peach Yogurt Jelly Mooncake.  This is my new mould for this year, I think it's really pretty.

I made this for my self indulgence.  The crazy coffee addict in me put a cup of Nespresso in it.  And how I love the aroma...

To complement the coffee, I put in peach flavored yogurt and some peach cubes.  They blend really well, the bitter sweet coffee and the sweet sourish peach.    

Have lots of fun under the beautiful moon tonight!

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Shanghai Mooncakes

Vroom, vroom...I got my mooncake making engine started over the weekend :) Mooncake festival is in 1 month's time.  I have been making quite a few types of mooncakes over the past 2 years.    And I am really glad to have started learning how to make them, store bought ones are really expensive nowadays.  To kickoff this mooncake making spree, i started with something light and easy (as in lesser effort, lower skill level and no resting time required for the mooncakes, after a year of waiting, this part is mental torture!). These are known as Shanghai mooncakes.

Personally, I feel these are a modern variation compared to their traditional cousins.  Although they have similar fillings, the pastry is very different.  This one has a crisp and buttery crust.

While writing, this question pop  up in my mind, why are they known as Shanghai mooncakes, is that where they originated??    Not much of an answer out there, except that it seems to be more popular in  this part of the world instead of China...?

Pardon the ugly cut, was too impatient to start indulging!

Verdict?
They tasted quite good, not bad at all.  And I think they look pretty with a walnut and a sizzle of sesame seeds :)

Recipe
Source : Mooncake Selections by Khoo See Yew (with a twist highlighted in blue)



Ingredients 
Pastry

• 280g flour (50% All Purpose flour, 50% cake flour)
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 30g custard powder 
• 100g icing sugar
• 1 1/2 eggs
• 75g butter, 75g shortening (150g butter)
• Walnuts and sesame seed

Filling

• Lotus paste filling

Method

1. Mix and sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and custard sugar in a bowl.
2. Mix butter and icing sugar until even, add in eggs then mix in sifted flour until becomes soft dough.
3. I left dough in fridge overnight before moulding them the next morning.
4. Divide the dough into equal portions of 40g each.  Wrap with filling of equal weight. (Original recipe was 30g dough, 20g filling)
5. Brush with egg yolk, sprinkle with sesame seeds and top with a walnut.
6. Bake at 180C for 25 minutes.  After 10 minutes, remove and brush with another layer of egg yolk.

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