It is the traditional mooncake season now. I make large batch of mooncakes every year as a gifts for my families and friends. This year, in addition to traditional sweet paste mooncakes, I choose nuts filling. In addition to traditional flour wrapper mooncakes, we also have no baking snow skin mooncakes.
The Chinese name for Chinese nuts mooncake is 五仁月饼, which means filling with five nuts. Nut mooncake is not very popular for years because the green and red strips (青红丝) is not liked by the young generation. It is candied orange skin with coloring. Thanks to the modernized cooking tools and we can make mooncakes at home. My homemade nut mooncake contains high quality and healthy nuts and dried fruits. It is still the nuts mooncake, but totally different inside.
Some differences about making mooncakes with nuts and other paste filling.
Firstly, the wrapper should be slightly thicker. As the nuts filling cannot as smooth as paste filling, thicker wrapper can make the shape much more prettier.
Secondly, the waiting time for softening back will be lengthened a lot. My mooncakes takes around 4 days to soft back. So you need to make earlier plan .
I recommend using toasted nuts directly. Or toast the nuts separately and then cut the large ones into smaller pieces. Mixed toasted nuts can save you lots of time and energy. I use walnuts, chestnut, sunflower seeds, white sesame seeds, cranberry, raisin, almond, pecans and etc. All of this ingredients are my daughter's favorites. If you use raw nuts, cut them into similar pieces and toast in oven.
Wrapper
Place lye water, golden syrup, and vegetable oil until completely combined (finishing the emulsification) and then mix with flour. Stir until well combined. Wrap with plastic wrapper and then knead several times until smooth. Set aside for 2-3 hours.
Transfer out and then divide into 24 equal balls (around each one 18g)
Instructions
Mix glutinous and cake flour and bake for 15 minutes at 180 degree C. Stir twice. Or pan-fry it with slow fire until the color begin yellow.
Melt maltose with water over slow fire.
Mix in nut, sugar, white spirit (Chinese hard liquid) dry flour (glutinous and cake flour) and then pour in the syrup. Stir to mix well and set aside.If the temperature is too high, place it in fridge until slightly hardened. Divide the filling into 30g to 32g balls.
Assemble
Take one portion of the wrapper, press into a round wrapper and then place one filling ball in center. Push the wrapper from bottom to top slowly until the whole ball is completely sealed. Shape it into a round ball firstly and then into an oval. Slightly dust your mooncake tool and press the rod and gently remove the cake from the tool.
Baking
Preheat oven to 180C (356F). Spray a very thin layer of water on surface to avoid cracking surface (especially you used larger amount of dusting flour). Bake for 5 minutes.
In a small bowl, whisked the egg yolk and combine with a small portion of egg whites. Transfer mooncakes out and brush a very thin layer of egg wash on the surface (thick egg wash spoil the shapes).
Continue bake for around 12 to 15 minutes until the mooncake becomes slightly browned. I show the process in this traditional mooncake video.
Transfer out to a cooling down crack to cool down completely. Place in an airtight container. Wait for around 3or 5 days for the pasty to become soft and oily. After the "oil return" process, keep the mooncakes in room temperature or fridge up to 2 weeks.
Mooncakes with Nuts
Ingredients
Mooncake wrapper
- 230 g all purpose flour
- 56 g peanut oil
- 150 g golden syrup
- 4 g lye water
- 1 tbsp. all purpose flour for coating
Filling
- 400 g mixed nuts and dried fruits , I use toasted nuts (finely chopped)
- 25 g sugar
- 80 g maltose
- 5 tbsp. water
- 70 g vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp. Chinese white spirit
- 100 g cooked flour ½ glutinous flour and ½ cake flour
Egg wash
- 1 egg yolk
- Half of one egg white
Instructions
Wrapper
- Place lye water, golden syrup, and vegetable oil in a small bowl until well combined and then mix with flour. Stir until well combined. Wrap with plastic wrapper and then knead several times until smooth. Set aside in fridge for 2-3 hours.
- Transfer out and then divide into 24 equal balls (around each one 18g)
Filling
- Mix glutinous and cake flour and bake for 15 minutes at 180 degree C. Stir twice. Or pan-fry it with slow fire until the color begin yellow.
- Melt maltose with water over slow fire.
- Mix in nut, sugar, white spirit, dry flour (glutinous and cake flour) and then pour in the syrup. Stir to mix well and then fridge until slightly hardened. Divide the filling into 30g to 32g balls.
Assemble
- Take one portion of the wrapper, press into a round wrapper and then place one filling ball in center. Push the wrapper from bottom to top slowly until the whole ball is completely sealed. Shape it into a round ball firstly and then into an oval. Slightly dust your mooncake tool and press the rod and gently remove the cake from the tool.
Baking
- Preheat oven to 180C (356F). Spray a very thin layer of water on surface to avoid cracking surface (especially you used larger amount of dusting flour). Bake for 5 minutes.
- In a small bowl, whisked the egg yolk and combine with egg whites. Transfer mooncakes out and brush a very thin layer of egg wash on the surface.
- In a small bowl, whisked the egg yolk and combine with egg whites. Transfer mooncakes out and brush a very thin layer of egg wash on the surface.
- In a small bowl, whisked the egg yolk and combine with egg whites. Transfer mooncakes out and brush a very thin layer of egg wash on the surface.Continue bake for around 12 to 15 minutes until the mooncake becomes well browned. I show the process in this traditional mooncake video.
Nutrition
Nick
Yay! I can't wait to get out my mooncake mold and try this! What nuts and fruits do you like to use?
Elaine
I use lots of my daughter's favorite in tis batch including walnuts, chestnut, sunflower seeds, white sesame seeds, cranberry, raisin, almond, pecans.
Andreas
So cool Elaine, I happened to go to the Chinese grocery store today, saw a lot of people buying these and was wondering why. Now I understand.
So a happy Mid-autumn day to you, too!
Randy
Lye water is not common here. Where do you find it and what concentration is it? Also what is golden syrup and can it be made at home? This nut moon cake looks really good!
Elaine
Randy,
You can make homemade syrup with this instructions. Honey can be used as a substitute for golden syrup too.Lye water sometimes called as alkaline salt is an alkaline solution. Tradition Chinese lye water is made with Kansui powder (蓬灰) and alkaline. But today’s version is a combined alkaline solution contains potassium carbonate and sodium carbonate. The ingredient label on the store bought bottle contains 80% pure water, 15% sodium carbonate and 5% potassium carbonate. The lye water can raise the alkalinity (pH) to neutralize the acid in the golden syrup. Baking soda does too, but sodium hydroxide is far more potent. Another purpose is the Maillard reaction, which is responsible for the crisping and browning crust skins.
This one might quite hard to find. Lye water You can try to search it at large Asian store, especially with lots of bakery ingredients. There are several approaches to make substitutes for lye water used in mooncake. They might work slightly different but can yield a very similar result.
Approach 1: dietary alkali powder with clean water at the ratio of 1:4.
Approach 2: If you use baking soda directly, you will get much softer and less browned crust. So firstly bake baking soda on a lined baking tray at 120 degree C for around 1 hour to turn it into stronger alkali. Do not touch it during the process to prevent skin irritation. And then mix 1 teaspoon of baked soda with 4 teaspoons of water.
Approach 3: A better substitute than baking soda due to its high pH is sodium carbonate. The pH value is between the pH of baking soda and lye water. I find this one on amazon.