Ice-skin Mooncakes with Custard Fillings

Chinese Moon Festival (Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋節) is around the corner. I haven’t eaten any mooncakes for ages. Suddenly, an idea came to my mind: why not make some for my family and friends this year? My daughter loves eating mochi very much. So I’m sure she would love this modern mooncake because its taste and texture are very similar to Ice-skin Mooncakes. I adapted the recipe that was given by one of my friends. Here you’d find making ice-skin mooncakes is not that hard you imagine. I brought along some ice-skin mooncakes to share in a family’s gathering. Before leaving, a kid eagerly asked for my recipe as she loved it very much and wanted to do it by herself. I bet whoever likes to eat mochi and custard would love these cute and yummy Ice-skin Mooncakes too.

Makes 10 to 11 mini heart-shaped mooncakes (each 49 grams)

Ingredients for ice-skin:

• 25 gm glutinous flour
• 25 gm rice flour
• 20 gm wheat flour
• 50 gm caster sugar
• 100 ml milk
• 20 ml condensed milk
• 20 ml vegetable oil

• 3 Tbsp cooked glutinous flour

Method for making ice-skin:

1. Sift glutinous flour, rice flour and wheat flour. Add sugar and combine all ingredients well.
2. Mix milk, condensed milk and oil. Pour in flour mixture. Stir until combined completely. Make sure there are no flour lumps.
3. Transfer mixture to a shallow plate. Steam for 15 minutes over high heat, until cooked through. Use a chopstick to pick up some to taste. If you can’t taste any uncooked flour, that’s done. Let cool.
4. Transfer to a clean work surface. Knead the dough until smooth (as picture shown). Set aside.

Ingredients for filling:

• 18 gm plain flour
• 18 gm cornflour
• 24 gm custard powder
• 2 eggs, whisked
• 18 ml condensed milk
• 135 ml water
• 30 gm caster sugar
• 30 gm melted butter

Method for making fillings:

1. Stir condensed milk and sugar in water until dissolved.
2. Sift cornflour, plain flour and custard power. Combine well.
3. Pour one-third of whisked egg into flour mixture and mix well. Repeat this step with the rest of the whisked egg, with small amount at a time. Pour in condensed milk mixture and melted butter, just incorporate all ingredients. Drain through a fine sift into a big plate.
4. Steam over high heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until cooked. Let cool.
5. Knead cooked custard into smooth dough. That’s the custard filling. You might like to make the filling in advance. Keep in a freezer. Rest in room temperature for a while before using. When it turns soft and easier to cut, it can be wrapped in mooncake skin.

Method for wrapping ice-skin mooncakes:

1. Use a clean frying pan to cook 3 tablespoons of glutinous flour. Don’t use any oil or water. When you see some smoke and flour turns a bit yellow, it’s cooked. Or you might like to cook glutinous flour in a microwave oven for 1 minute at high power. This cooked glutinous flour is to be used while wrapping mooncakes.
2. Divide ice-skin dough into 10 to 11 portions, about 21 grams each. Use about 28 grams of custard dough, shaped in little balls for each mooncake. Knead each ice-skin dough portion into small balls. Then shape or roll with a pin into small disc, wrap custard ball (as picture shown). Seal edge, sprinkle cooked glutinous flour. Press in a cookie cutter to shape the mooncake. Repeat this step to finish the rest of the dough. You can store the ice-skin mooncakes for 3-4 weeks. Transfer them in fridge or rest in room temperature for a while until soften a bit before serving. Done!

Tips:

1. It’s better to shape dough with a mooncake mould. If you don’t have any, just like me, you can use any mould you like. Any cookie cutter or jelly mould would do as well.
2. In this recipe, the ratio of skin and filling is 3: 4 (21 grams to 28 grams). The skin is quite thin because of my preference to its semi-transparent look. You might like to follow any ratio, like 4:3. That would be much easier to wrap the fillings.