“Simple and delicious homemade Snow Skin Moon Cake (Non-baked) warms the hearts of your loved ones”
Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节) is approaching. Lunar calendar 15th August, which is English calendar, 3rd Oct 09.
Mooncakes from all brands, hotels and bakeries, are selling hot and fast in the market. I personally think moon cake is overly priced, just for the season, but no choice. Mooncake is the main festive food we have to have for this festive celebration, for self consumption as well as for gift to family and friends.
I am not a big fan of mooncake, but of course, I MUST have mooncake every year since it can only be eaten once a year (smile). However, I thought unless you are going for really famous one or unique flavour which can’t find anywhere, make your own mooncakes! From basic lotus paste or red bean flavour to green tea flavour, you can make it your own at home!
Snow skin is very easy to make. Called it snow skin, I guess it’s because this non-baked mooncake has smooth and light layer of skin resembling snow. And it is also to serve chilled. It’s fast and easy to make.. but many details have to be noticed (See my below listed tips). To warm the heart of your loved ones this year, make your very own mooncake to impress them!
Yields 20 mini cakes
Ingrediens
For snow skin dough:
100 grams of icing sugar, sifted
100 grams of snow powder
80 grams of shortening fat (I used Crisco brand)
150ml of water
3 pandan leaves, tie into a knot
1 teaspoon of pandan paste
For filling:
1 kg of lotus paste, pandan flavour (*Get ready paste from the supermarket/ baking supplies shop)
100 grams of melon seeds, toasted at 160°C for 10 minutes
Method
1) Boil water with pandan leaves for 10 minutes. Heat off and leave to cool. Add in pandan paste and stir till disolved. Leave in refrigerator to chill before use.
2) Add toasted melon seeds with lotus paste and form into each small ball (about 60 – 70 gram each lotus paste ball).
3) Place fried glutinous rice flour, icing sugar, snow powder and shortening far into a large mixing bowl. Mix well with spatula, or electrical mixer at low speed, till mixture turns into crumb-like texture.
4) Add cold pandan water into crumb-like flour mixture. Mix well with spatula, or mixer at low speed (about 1 – 2 min), to form soft dough. Remove soft dough from mixing bowl and place it on a floured (with fried glutinous rice flour) table top and knead for few seconds to form into a dough ball. Rest dough for 10 minutes.
5) Cut dough ball into halves and roll it out. Cut the rolls into required size (about 10g each) and flatten each small dough into thin layer.
6) Fill in lotus paste, seal and shape the cake into ball. Lightly pat just a little fried glutinous rice flour all over the cake ball. Also flour the mooncake mould before placing cake ball into the mould and press firmly.
7) Over turn the mould to knock the cake out from mould. Repeat steps till all ingredients used. Ready to serve chilled.
Soft, chewy and fragrant snow skin mooncake. I liked it not too sweet. It can be served at room temperature or chilled. 1 mini snowskin mooncake counts about 200kcal.
Snow skin moon cake can be stored in refrigerator, and it may last up to 2 weeks. However, snow skin might be harden if store for too long. To reduce/ prevent harden skin, place mooncake in a box and wrap the box with newspaper.
For traditional baked mooncake, check it out now..
Tips: Mix with snow powder is to reduce sweetness of the mooncake skin. If do not wish to add snow powder, use 200 grams of icing sugar instead. Same thing, if wish to reduce sweetness further, use 200 gram of snow powder and completely omit icing sugar.
* Shortening fat is vegetable fat with less grease. Other brands besides Crisco, can be found in major supermarket stores and baking supplies shops.
* Flour used for skin making as well as coating and flouring table, all must be the fried glutinous rice flouw and not the normal glutinous or plain flour. Only the fried one is edible without baked/ cooked. Even though it is called fried rice flour, but it is still look pretty much ike normal rice flour in white colour (NOT brown colour nor fried crisped texture). Ready fried glutinous flour can be found at major supermarkets.
* Rest the soft dough to turn it into moist and pliable textured snow skin. If rest soft dough longer than 10 minutes, cover dough with dry cloth or cling wrap when resting it.
* Snow skin can make into different flavour and colour by changing the flavour/ essence, according to different filling used.
* If you wish to add salted egg yolk, reduce amount of lotus paste to half. Salted egg yolk and lotus paste can be found at major supermarkets.
jocelyn September 29, 2009
hi there. sorry, i have a weird question to ask you (which you might not understand). does your snowskin have this distinctive after-taste? i believe some other HK pastries have this similar after-taste as well, if you know what i’m talking about. cos i really hate it but i really want to try out your recipe. lol. =x thanks in advance! =D
PatriCa BB September 29, 2009
Hmm.. Jocelyn, so sorry to tell you that I do not quite understand what you mean by distinctive taste similar to other HK pastries..
To me, snowskin is meant to taste light, soft and great mouthfeel especially if serve chilled. I personall do not feel any after taste of the snowskin.
Distinctive taste should come from whichever filling you put in. Do you consider durian filling as distinctive after-tasted snowskin moon cake? It is to me. :)
Sorry, can’t help. :p
jocelyn September 30, 2009
hi patrica. don’t worry abt it. cos i really don’t know how to describe it either.
it’s just that i really love snowskin moocakes. but some bakeries’ snowskin mooncakes seem to have this really sweet and weird after taste that i don’t like. and it came from the snowskin, not the filling.
i saw that your snowskin recipe had this snow powder. i was wondering if this was what contributed to that after taste. but nontheless, thank you for your fast reply. i guess i’ll just try it and see how it goes. heh. thank you! =D
PatriCa BB September 30, 2009
Hi Jocelyn,
Now that you mentioned abt the sweet taste of you quite fear of, I guess it should not be the problem from snow powder as this snow powder is meant to reduce the sweetness of the snowskin, if you do not like too sweet taste of the skin. Instead, if you added just the icing sugar, the snowskin will be very sweet. So, do not reduce the amount of sugar, but I will recommend you to add more snow powder than icing sugar amount to make up the total of 200 grams.
jocelyn September 30, 2009
Hi Patrica. ooohh.. i see~
thanks! i shall try to find snow powder then, cos i’m in NYC now and i’m not sure i can find them. in fact, i’m not sure if i can even find lotus paste! lol.
but thanks a lot! =D
PatriCa BB October 1, 2009
Snow powder is just look alike with icing sugar, the differences are snow powder not too sweet and not easily melted.
Hmm.. if you can’t get lotus paste, try red bean paste or make your own Japanese sweet potato (the purplish type) paste/ pumpkin paste as filling, then. Best if you could find durian to make its filling! :D
jocelyn October 2, 2009
haha~ i have come to the conclusion that i needed to make my own paste and that’s what i did! lol. but it’s not as smooth as i want it to be, cos i didn’t have a blender to make the paste smooth. it’s alright. take it as a diff texture, i guess. i really want traditional lotus paste, so that’s why i’m insisting on it. lol.
thanks for your suggestions! i would try them all if i could, but right now, i’m having a headache trying to find the mold! yes~ the most important thing is still missing. haha.. well, you’ve been a really great help! i can’t thank you enough! hope you have a great mooncake fest! =D
PatriCa BB October 2, 2009
Yeah! Goody…
I had no time to make my own lotus paste since it’s a weekday, and it’s very convenient to get delicious ready made paste in Singapore, else I will share my lotus paste recipe with you.. next time next time.. :p
Anyway, I got the lotus paste from a baking supplier named Phoon Huat. It was very smooth and delicious! 1kg at S$14.50, a little expensive but worth it.. Save time for working class who still wish to make own moon cake, like me. :)
Happy trying!
Anonymous October 31, 2009
Hello!
I don’t think I ever see fried glutinuos rice flour in the asian market I shop. How can I make it out of the glutinuos rice flour?
what is snow powder? What is icing sugar? Is confectioner’s or powdered sugar same as icing sugar?
Thanks!
PatriCa BB November 1, 2009
Hi,
Fried glutinous flour is cooked type which we may eat instantly without baking or cooking it. In Chinese, we called it Gao Fen 糕粉. This fried glutinous rice or called it cooked sticky rice flour should be available in Asian Market, perhaps at provision shops in Chinatown..
Snow powder sugar is the doughnut sugar or used on pastries, a non-melting sugar. This is similar to powdered sugar, only it doesn’t melt as easily. And yes, icing sugar is powdered sugar or called it Confectioners sugar.
Anonymous November 4, 2009
I can’t find fried glutinous rice flour in Asian market here in California, USA. How can I make it myself?
PatriCa BB November 4, 2009
Hi,
I thought this common flour type is easily obtainable in California, especially San Francisco. And sorry to know that it is not so… I did not personally try to make my own fried glutinous rice flour, but try this method to get cooked glutinous flour. Hope it helps to solve your problem in this matter.
Continuously stir-fry the glutinous flour in a wok at mild flame for an hour or more might take up too much of your time to get the job done. Try this, steam 200 gram of regular glutinous flour for about 20 minutes. Then, bake at 300C or microwave at high heat for 2 – 3 minutes, in incremental of 1 minute at a time. Stir to mix the flour up after each minute of heating. You have to watch out the heating time to prevent the flour from burnt.
Do let me know if it is doable!
Anonymous November 6, 2009
Thanks for the procedure on how to make fried glutinuos rice flour. Won’t steaming wet the flour?
PatriCa BB November 6, 2009
Hi,
Hmm… you may tie a sheet of dry cloth on the wok lid to absorb the steam from condensation on the lid and dripping down to your flour. Try it out with a little for the first time to get the method right, I guess.. Or, just bake and microwave it, or slowly fry it in the wok with low flame?
So sorry, I did not personally try to cook this flour before.. Let me try, and I will share with you my outcome in due?
Anonymous November 7, 2009
We’ll wait for you to try to cook the fried rice flour and share the outcome with us.
Please also share with us how to make Mochi. Thanks!
moo November 20, 2009
This is so late but can I just say how much I heart your recipes?
Tried out this and it was a blast to make and yummy to eat. Even got my 2-ish son to join in the fun (http://moomooland.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/mooncakes/)
2nd round, we even tried it with durian. =)
luvwish September 12, 2010
hey!!! i did the snow skin, but it was so sticky… then only i realise i bought the glutinuos rice flour with no FRIED words on the packaging….does this difference the outcome?
luvwish September 12, 2010
hey!!! i did the snow skin, but it was so sticky… then only i realise i bought the glutinuos rice flour with no FRIED words on the packaging….does this difference the outcome?
PatriCa BB September 12, 2010
Luvwish,
You have to use fried glutinous flour as I do not think non fried one can be consumed directly.
evelyn August 16, 2011
Hi Patrica, I tried your recipe. Smell nice and taste good. But I got 1 question. When I doing the skin dough, it’s form a soft dough. But it will have small bits of dough dropping off?
PatriCa BB August 20, 2011
Hi Evelyn,
No. The texture should be soft and smooth. You need to also moist your palm with some oil before kneading.
CNC Enterprise August 24, 2011
Anyone out there know how to keep the snow skin longer? My can last 2 days only! On the 3rd day it started to harden.
CNC Enterprise August 24, 2011
Hi, anyone out there know how to keep the snow skin longer? Mine lasted for 2 days only! On the 3rd day it started to harden.
WENN August 25, 2011
Hi, may I know where to get loutus paste in Singapore? :) And what kind of food colouring will you recommend?
PatriCa BB August 25, 2011
Hi WENN,
Ready Lotus paste is available at Phoon Huat baking suppliers. Google Phoon Huat for outlets’ address. Sometimes, NTUC Extra, Giant Hypermart or Carrerfour sell it, too.
Garfield August 30, 2011
hi, may i know where you get snow powder in Singapore?
PatriCa BB September 1, 2011
Hi Garfield,
Snow sugar powder is easily available in many supermarkets. Look around the baking cells and you shd be able to find it.
It usually comes in packet.
Michelle June 29, 2014
Hi Patricia
May I know why my mini mooncakes hardened after a night in fridge?
Any remedy to it?
PatriCa BB June 30, 2014
Hi Michelle, try to store your mooncakes in an airtight container as I think the temperature of your fridge is very low.
Michelle June 29, 2014
My shortening is not in room temperature when I mix to a crumble! Any problem with that?
PatriCa BB June 30, 2014
I think it shd be fine, but I was worried that it doesn’t yield soft enough snow skin if that’s the case.
Michelle June 30, 2014
If I m bringing the snow skin mooncakes to places like church, can be in room temp? At least stay for two hours in room temp then serve! Will that be a problem?
PatriCa BB July 1, 2014
No problem!
Michelle July 2, 2014
Ur snowskin mooncake is soft even is chilled? How did u do that?
PatriCa BB July 3, 2014
Just follow recipe. :)