Rainbow Snowskin Mooncake

As Mid-autumn festival approaches, the time for making mooncakes is here! Some bloggers have already begun making mooncakes so I am not an early bird. Here's my first set of mooncakes for this year: rainbow snowskin mooncakes!

This is my first attempt at using mooncake mould with a plunger so I can do with some improvements. I used the traditional wooden moulds last year.

I made some cartoon character ones using cookie cutter too!

You may have seen the pinwheel rainbow mooncakes before e.g. on Baking Taitai's blog or from some baking groups. But I am not shy to say that I was the one who came up with this design and posted it in a culinary group a year ago, way before Susanne and I started blogging. It did create a lot of interest back then and many were keen to try making it since it's unique.

The recipe I am using is the one provided at a mooncake making workshop for beginners so we used snow skin premix from Phoon Huat. For more authentic recipes, you may refer to mooncake guru Ann Low's blog. I will focus on showing you how to shape the rainbow mooncake. But for lazy people like me who just wanna have some playdoh fun, here's the recipe:

Ingredients (makes 12 small mooncakes):
186g snow skin premix plus extra for dusting (or 114g icing sugar + 72g "kou fen". Premix contains icing sugar, glutinous rice flour, full cream milk powder and tapioca starch.)
45g shortening
69g water
1/4 tsp pandan flavouring
300g white lotus paste
1 tbs melon seeds, lightly toasted
Liquid food colouring

Steps:
1. Combine snow skin premix and shortening using the rubbing in method until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. Add in water and pandan flavouring and form a dough.

3. Add toasted melon seeds into the lotus paste and divide into balls of 25g each.

4. Divide the dough into 6 equal portions and color using liquid food colouring. **In order to color them in shades that doesn't end up making the mooncakes neon bright, use a finger to add colouring one dab at a time. I prefer using liquid food colouring for mooncakes because I find gel colouring results in very neon bright colours.

5.  Divide each coloured ball into 2 equal portions. Place one portion in the center of a template drawn on the reverse side of a baking sheet. The template is a circle about 10cm in diameter and divided into 6 equal segments. If you have a protractor that's all you need to draw the template. Flatten the ball of dough and use a bench scraper or butter knife to cut into the six segments as marked out by the template. Repeat for all coloured balls.

6. Assemble the cut up pieces on the template in the order of the colours of the rainbow. Try to make the segments come together at the centre of the circle to get a nice pinwheel effect. Flatten the pieces with a small rolling pin or your palm.

7. Place a ball of lotus paste in the middle and wrap it up, trying your best to seal the seams. Don't worry if the individual pieces seem to want to come apart. They will stick nicely in the mould.

8. Evenly coat the assembly with some snowskin premix and place it in the mould. Punch out the shape and refrigerate until firm (at least 2 hours).

If you want to do some easy foody activity with kids, you may try using cartoon character cookie cutters to make snowskin mooncakes. I had good bonding time with my kids doing that :).

*Update: Please use this updated recipe for a smoother snowskin.

 I'm joining Best Recipes for Everyone August 2014 Event Theme: Dim Sum hosted by Fion XuanHom's Mom.

With love,
Phay Shing