Snow skin mooncake (a video recipe) for traditional Chinese Mid-autumn day. This time, we are enjoying creamy custard filling.
Mooncakes are the most popular symbolized festival food for our Mid-autumn day. There are a large group of mooncakes to choose in recent years. Snow skin mooncake is a new family member compared to traditional cantonese mooncakes.
I am quite excited but also a little bit blue, as we will celebrate our Mid-autumn day in following two weeks. For me, mid-autumn day is the most important holiday along with the year because it is my birthday. Most people of my generation in China celebrate birthday based on our lunar calendar. When I was still a young girl, my grandma always cooked yummy dishes, make mooncakes and Sichuan glutinous rice cake to celebrate my birthday. To me, the new city of Shenzhen is familiar but also strange. I do not have any relatives here. The emotion of missing my mom, dad and grand parents is becoming stronger and stronger. And my way to help me out is to make yummy food and share with others. So I make a large box of snow skin mooncake for my husband’s colleagues. If you prefer a colored version, check this post: snow skin mooncakes.
I use creamy custard filling for this year’s snow skin mooncake, as I just can’t reject the milky and creamy taste. And I have also posted a famous Dim Sum creamy custard bun previously using the same filling.
To make the snow skin mooncake with the best results, I highly recommend measuring all the ingredients. And there are several tips before you starting making your own.
- To make the perfect custard filling, custard powder is necessary. It is firstly imported by some bakery stores in Hong Kong and now becomes a popular baking ingredient in Mainland China too. It increases the milky aroma and adds a light yellow color to the filling. However if it really too difficult to acquire, you can skip it with some sacrifice of the taste. And if you plan to skip custard powder, using more egg yolks can help to improve the color.
- During the whole processing, stir the liquid forcefully and keep the fire as slow as possible, otherwise the flour might be caking. After heating, continue to stir the filling for several minutes just like the video until the texture becomes very very fine and smooth
- Kneading the wrapper dough is another important tip. This will help to keep the wrapper soft after refrigeration. And usually the wrapper will be slightly sticky even after refrigeration; you can coat your hands with pan-fried glutinous rice flour or ware a kitchen plastic glove.
- In is important to coat the mooncake stamp each time before shaping, otherwise the mooncake might stick to the stamp.
- Helpful ingredient links from Amazon for the appearance reference: water milled glutinous rice flour, water milled rice flour, wheat starch, mooncake stamp. You can try to search them in large local asian stores.
Snow Skin Mooncake-Video Recipe with Custard Filling
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup of glutinous rice flour for coating
Creamy custard filling
- 1.5 tbsp. custard powder
- 1/2 cup wheat starch +2 tablespoons cake flour
- 100 ml milk
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter ,30grams
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar ,60 grams
- 2 eggs ,100g or 1 large egg+ another yolk (whisked)
wrapper
- 45 g glutinous rice flour
- 35 g rice flour water milled version
- 20 g wheat starch
- 40 g sugar or sugar powder
- 185 g milk or unsweetened coconut milk
- 18 g vegetable oil
Instructions
Make creamy custard filling
- In a small pot over slowest heat, dissolve sugar with milk.
- Shift all the flours and custard powder quickly. Stir to combine well. Add egg and butter in. Keep stirring forcefully in the whole process to combine everything and avoid caking. Heat until the mixture becomes very thick and form a paste texture. Remove from fire and keep stirring for several minutes until it becomes fine and smooth.
- Transfer out, cool down and cover with plastic wrapper. Refrigerate for several hours until hardened so you can shape the filling easily.
Make the wrapper
- Combine milk, sugar and oil well and then mix with wheat starch, rice flour and glutinous rice flour.
- Strain once and set aside for 30 minutes. Cover with plastic wrappers and steam over high fire for around 30 minutes until it becomes slightly transparent. Transfer out and stir with chop stickers forcefully for several minutes until fine and smooth. Transfer to a plate and cover with plastic wrapper. Knead with both hands for several minutes until the surface becomes oily. (This is really important to have a soft taste wrapper, so do not skip this). Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before assembling the snow skin mooncake.
Make coating flour
- In a fry pan, stir fry raw glutinous rice flour on medium low heat until the flour turns light yellow. Remove it from the heat. Set aside to cool down.
Assemble
- Measure each wrapper around 20grams and filling 30 grams. And then shape both of wrapper and filling to balls.
- Prepare the dusting flour, filling, wrapper and mooncake stamp. Assemble the mooncake stamp well and then dust with flour. Shake off extra flour and set aside.
- Wrap the filling with wrapper and seal completely. And then shape to a ball firstly and further to an oval. Place the oval to stamp (unsealed side first), flat with bottom with fingers; push the shaping tool to stamp the flowers. Then demold carefully. If you find the mooncake is sticky on the stamp, use the other hand to help separating.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Hi Elaine, just made this recipe! I am wondering, how do you say custard in Chinese?
we call it 奶黄.
Hi Elaine, can I substitute the shortening to butter?
Hi Jess,
I only use butter in this recipe. Which shortening?
I love all of your recipes and your blog is wonderful. You have taught me so much, and brought me closer to Chinese cooking than ever before. Thank you so much for continuing on this splendid journey, and thank you for sharing it with all of us. 🙂
Thanks for sharing, it’s a very clear step by step and easy to understand 🙂
You are the most welcome.
Hi…..i love your recipe and i want to try it …
But may i refrigerate the wrapper for a night ? Cos im afriad that i dont have enough time …so i think i will do the wrapper first …than keep it in refrgerate for a night .?
If you want to make the wrapper ahead, the mooncakes should be eaten up in the following day.
We uses grams instead of cup, Understand that Cups for DRy and wet ingredients are different.
Able to convert them to grammage.
Hi Orchid,
I list most of the main ingredients in actual grams. For some small amount ingredients for example custard powder, tablespoon and teaspoon should be more convenient. Thank you!
If i want to add colour to make colour snowskin mooncake. When should i add the colour then ?
Tq
You can knead the color when during the kneading process after steaming.
Hi!
This recipe looks wonderful, I bought the mooncake molds and I can’t wait to try it.
I can’t seem to find wheat starch in my area, is there anything else I can use? corn flour or regular white flour maybe?
Thanks!
You can use cornstarch as a substitute. But the mooncake should be less transparent.
Amazing recipe and excellent instructions. Love everything about it.
I am definitely go to try this recipe. 5*****
I like the recipe very nice… can I ask how can make the pastry harder… if too soft some people don’t like.. how can make harder. Thank you I learn a lot from you.
Hi Natasha,
After assembling, place the mooncake in fridge and the skin will become harder after chilled. You can try it.