Yesterday we welcomed a powerful full moon transited from Pisces to Aries, and people from different parts of the world celebrated Mabon, Oscara or the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is usually celebrated with families gathered together, moon gazing while tasting yummy mooncakes and other sweet/savoury pastries. This special occasion associates with harvest, unity, gratitude and release, for which, I’ve made a dozen mooncakes with crispy crust and a fragrant filling.
You don’t need any mooncake mould or lye water or golden syrup for this recipe, it takes approx. 1.5 hour to make, baking time included and yields 12 small mooncakes 😊.
One of the reasons why I didn’t use a mooncake mould is because I love the rustic raw look of a round mooncake, it’s inspired by the sweet Xuanwei ham mooncake from Yunnan province in China that dated back to 1872 in the Qing Dynasty.
The locals usually eat mooncakes with Pu’er tea, here I paired it with a Longjing (AKA Dragon Well Tea) from Xihu District, its sweet nutty and leafy taste is almost perfect for this mooncake ☺️.
Ingredients
For the dough:
💛 40g of drinking water
💛 2g of baking soda
💛 40g of powdered sugar
💛 75g of avocado oil, or any other vegetable oil that doesn’t have a strong taste/smell
💛 25g of maple syrup, if you’re not vegan, you can use honey instead
💛 250g of self-raising flour, or all purpose flour
For the filling:
💛 50g of black sesame seed (if you have roasted black sesame seed, you can skip cooking instruction step 1 and 2）
💛 50g of unsalted pecan nuts (if your pecan nuts are already roasted, you can skip cooking instruction step 1 and 2)
💛 45g of maple syrup, you can adjust the amount based on how sweet you’d like the filling. For the non-vegans, you can use honey instead
💛 2tbsp of coconut oil (optional)
Cooking instructions
We will start with the filling first:
1️⃣ hit up a pan, add 2tbsp of coconut oil, if you have a non-stick pan, you can also opt-out the oil
2️⃣ roast the pecan nuts and black sesame seeds on low fire until the fragrances come out, approx. 8 mins, keep stirring in the process and be careful not to burn them
3️⃣ add roasted black sesame seeds and pecan nuts together with maple syrup in a blender, blend to a fine texture, have a taste of the filling, add more maple syrup if desired.
4️⃣ set aside to cool
To make the dough, you need to
1️⃣ add baking soda in a large mixing bowl, add drinking water and stir until baking soda is fully dissolved
2️⃣ add avocado oil, powdered sugar and maple syrup, mix very well until the mixture is emulsified
3️⃣ stir the flour in using a spatula or chopstick, don’t stir too vigorously
4️⃣ knead with your hand until it forms a nice smooth and oily dough. If it’s too wet, you can add more flour, a tiny bit at a time 😉
5️⃣ take each time approx. 35g of the dough and roll it into a small ball, flatten it in your hand and add the filling in the middle, close the mooncake by folding the sides together, like you do with dumplings, shape it round using your thumb and index finger.
6️⃣ cover the baking tray with parchment paper, place the mooncakes with the closure-side down on the tray, bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 15-18 minutes
Enjoy 🥮!
Inner Orbit 