中文菜谱：蛋黄莲蓉月饼

2016 Mid-Autumn Day is September 15. It is a traditional Chinese festival to celebrate harvest time, family and friendship. Yes, it is kind of like Thanksgiving Day. Mooncakes will be served as the traditional dessert on this special day.

I love to make them from scratch every year not just because it is fun to do so, but also because I am trying to create the taste of home for my own family O(∩_∩)O~

Mooncakes with yolks and lotus seed paste may sound bizarre. As a matter of fact, they are so tasty that they remain the number one flavor on my mooncake list. The combination of salted duck egg yolks and sweet creamy lotus seed paste is very pleasantly balanced and wonderfully tasty.

I posted how to make salted duck eggs before too.

The whole salted duck egg process takes about a month. So I made a batch one month ahead of time.

Do not boil the eggs. For this recipe, we need raw duck eggs.

Crack them into a small bowl.

Spoon the yolks onto a baking pan.

Spray them with rice wine. I use Vodka.

Bake in an oven preheated to 375/190C for 8 minute

I am planning to use 50 g mooncake mold. So the whole yolks need to be sliced into halves. Otherwise, they would be too big in the cakes.

Each of them weighs between 9 to 12 g.

The ready to use version duck yolks are available in most Chinese grocery store. You can find them in frozen food section.

Don’t forget to thaw them under room temperature before using.

Cut them into halves too.

Now we can move on to lotus seed paste.

For the lotus seed paste：

300 g dried lotus seeds
water for boiling
130 to 150 g oil
280 to 300 g sugar

Boil the lotus seeds in water for about 90 minutes. Puree them with a hand blender or in a food processor. Transfer to a nonstick pan. Sautee over medium high heat; stir constantly. Add sugar and oil in between. Cook until the paste is thick and has the texture of apple butter.

Completely cool down to room temperature before using.

With a digital kitchen scale, divide the paste into 25 g each, 35 g each if no yolks is added later.

Pat them down a little bit and add a piece of yolk. My friend’s hand is posing here O(∩_∩)O~

Wrap it up. Repeat until all yolks are done.

The mooncake recipe is adapted from : http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=cooking&MsgID=472418

For the dough:

150 g cake flour
75 golden syrup
40 g oil
1/2 teaspoon lye water (also available in Asian grocery store)
a pinch of salt
egg yolk wash

Preheat the oven to 375F/191C

Mix flour, syrup, oil, lye water and salt together

With a digital kitchen scale, divide it into 15 g pieces.

Gently press them down with fingers. Add the fillin

And then wrap it up.

I use 50 g mooncake molds

Use the mooncake mold to shape each of them. Transfer to large cookie pan lined with baking mat

Bake in the oven for 5 minutes. Take them out and brush with egg yolk wash.

Send them back to oven to bake for another 15 minutes or until they are nicely golden brown.

They need to sit in an air-tight box for a couple days before serving. These extra couple days will help the mooncake to develop their flavors and textures.