Pandan Snow Skin Mooncakes with Coconut Mung Bean Filling

How nice to make these fragrant pandan snow skin mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival? It's fun and divinely tasty. Step-by-step photos are in the recipe below.

Mid-Autumn Festival (aka moon festival or mooncake festival, 中秋節) is one of the important festivals in Chinese calendar. I’ve grown up from a family that would have store-brought mooncakes every year. Since I moved to Australia, I’ve been pondering over the idea of making my own mooncakes. After many years, I made some traditional and trendy ones finally.

Coconut milk and pandan juice often go well together in making Chinese dessert. Off I went with this idea and made these mini snow skin mooncakes for our church gathering.

The smell, taste and colour of both coconut milk and pandan are very unique, that you hardly find any other things to replace them.

Fresh pandan leaves are not common here. I could source some frozen ones though, and was glad that it was a big hit in our gathering.

Pandan Snow Skin Mooncakes with Coconut Mung Bean Filling Recipe

(Printable recipe)
By Christine’s Recipes
Course: Dessert, Festive
Cuisine: Chinese
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 60 mins
Yield: 16 mini mooncakes (50 grams each. Sized diameter 4.5cm, depth 4.5cm)

Ingredients:

• 55 gm glutinous rice flour
• 45 gm rice flour
• 25 gm wheat flour / wheat starch
• 60 gm caster sugar
• 190 ml milk
• 30 ml condensed milk
• 25 ml vegetable oil (such as sunflower oil or canola oil)
• 40 ml pandan juice
• 2 to 3 drops of pandan paste / pandan essence, optional
• 320 gm mung bean filling (To make the filling, refer to this recipe.)
• 2 Tbsp cooked glutinous rice flour, for coating

Method:

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine glutinous rice flour, rice flour, wheat flour and sugar well.
2. Mix milk, condensed milk, pandan juice and oil together. Pour into the flour mixture and stir to combine. Drain through a fine sieve into a large and shallow pan.
3. Steam the batter in a wok over medium-high heat, for about 15 to 20 minutes. Try a bit of the dough. If it doesn’t have any raw flour taste, it’s cooked through. Remove from wok and let it cool down. Scrape the dough out onto a plastic board or a kitchen benchtop lined with plastic film. Lightly knead by hand until smooth. Cut dough into 16 portions, 30 grams of each.
4. Divide mung bean filling into 16 portions, 20 grams of each. Roll each into a round shape.
5. Wrap each filling ball with a dough portion. Roll with your palms and lightly coat with cooked glutinous rice flour. Shake off any excess flour. Place into a mooncake mould. Press to print the pattern. Repeat this step until finish all the dough and fillings. Store the mooncakes into an air-tight container. Put kitchen paper on top to prevent any condensed water dropped on the mooncake surface. Refrigerate overnight. Enjoy.

How to make pandan juice:

1. Rinse 4 pieces of pandan leaves and wipe dry. Roughly cut into smaller sections. Use an electric food processor to process the leaves with 4 tablespoons of water until finely cut.
2. Transfer to a filter paper. Squeeze out the pandan juice. Then measure out the amount yielded by the recipe. The rest of the pandan juice can be stored in fridge with cover for up to a few days.

Notes：

• How to prepare cooked glutinous rice flour: Simply cook the flour in a frypan without any oil over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. When smoke releases and the flour turns light yellow, it’s cooked. Remove from the heat and let it cool down completely. Then you can use it to coat your mooncakes.
• If you don’t have a mooncake mould, you can use a jelly mould or any other mould that comes in handy to you.
• If pandan leaves are not available, you can replace it with milk.
• Add more pandan paste if you like a deeper colour.
• When the dough is still hot, it seems to be quite oily. Don't worry. It won't be greasy at all, when it cools down completely.
• The snow skin mooncakes can be stored in freezer up to a few weeks. Before serving, just transfer the mooncakes to fridge for about 3 hours, until they become soften a bit.