My Mooncake Experiment

Making mooncakes is a lot of work! When we arrived here in Tahoe, I found a box of mooncakes (in my freezer) sent to me by Carlos a couple of months ago. I quickly defrosted it and ate all huge 4 pcs. And of course, I immediately felt guilty about all the sugar I just consumed.

Then on a quick stop at a local thrift store, I found this pretty looking mooncake mould. The store didn't know what it was (thought it was a wall decor) and sold it to me for a dollar. Mooncake in my freezer and a mooncake mould for a dollar? Who could resist? I was certain it was a sign from somewhere that I needed to make my own sugarless mooncake!

I found numerous recipes on the internet. At a glance, they all looked simple to make. And probably not such a big deal substituting Splenda with the kilos of sugar required to make one small mooncake. So I gathered my ingredients (most of them substitutes) and started my project.

My first attempt was a failure. My mooncake didn't look like one and the crust (or mooncake skin) was so hard I didn't even want to taste it. The second one was a little better but still far from what a mooncake should look like. When I mixed all my ingredients and placed my mooncake ball in the mold, it looked so pretty, I thought it would look the same coming out of the oven.



It looked more like two EXTRA LARGE, delicious-tasting HOPIA!



I should have read all the instructions carefully. The kind of flour they use for the mooncake skin is crucial. I used regular all-purpose flour and ended up making a hard crust. Also, I thought I could skip the lye water, thinking that it was only for removing the skin off the lotus seeds. Apparently, lye water also allowed the shape of the moon cake to stay and look the same after baking. The only correct thing I did was the filling. I made lotus seed filling (which is the traditional moon cake filling) and a batch of black bean paste filling--both using Splenda as a sugar substitute. The filling turned out okay (as you can see from the photo below) except for the color which was not such a big deal for me. Besides, the moon cakes I have had in the past had 90% filling and 10% crust. So I was happy to have mostly sugarfree dessert.

A quick note, though. Making the filling takes HOURS and a lot of arm work. In addition to soaking (overnight) and boiling the seeds, you need to seriously and continuously stir them while "frying" until dry. Or you will end up with soggy filling or a crumbly one. The upside is once you get it right, you have enough filling to make plenty moon cakes to last you a season!

I have not given up on my search for a sugarless mooncake. I have to wait until I get back to San Diego so I have access to proper ingredients from my local oriental store. In the meantime, I made some no-bake GREEN TEA SNOW SKIN MOON CAKES using my sugarless black bean paste filling.

As soon as I get the traditional moon cake (sugarless) recipe right, I will post with delicious photos. This time I'll make sure I take good photos (or make several moon cakes!).