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.
- 1/3 cup of glutinous rice flour for coating
- 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)
- 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
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In a small pot over slowest heat, dissolve sugar with milk.
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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.
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Transfer out, cool down and cover with plastic wrapper. Refrigerate for several hours until hardened so you can shape the filling easily.
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Combine milk, sugar and oil well and then mix with wheat starch, rice flour and glutinous rice flour.
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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.
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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.
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Measure each wrapper around 20grams and filling 30 grams. And then shape both of wrapper and filling to balls.
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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.
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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.
Recipe Video
Those snow skin mooncakes need to be stored in airtight wrapper or container separately; otherwise, the surface will dry out. The best enjoying time is the next day after assembling.
If you want to frozen them, they can be frozen up to 1 week but move to refrigerating area several hours before serving until they are soft back.
I can’t wait to try it! Two years ago I made the traditional Cantonese mooncakes. Last year I made those again, and also Taiwanese “swirled’ taro mooncakes. This year I want to try making snowskin mooncakes. I will share them with my friends during the Moon Festival while we have Gongfu Cha.
Thank you for the recipe and very helpful video. These look easier to make than the other versions I’ve tried. 🙂
I hope you will like it.
Hello Elaine,
I love your tutorial. Very easy to understand.
I just made the wrapper, it’s very oily. Is it supposed to be so oily?
The custard is great! my kids already pinched a lot haha!
Thank you,
Angie
Angie,
The wrapper can be slightly oil firstly, but not very oily. But it will become dry very soon after chilled.
Hi Elaine,
Refer to your Custard Filling ingredient, need your advise :
1. 1/2 cup of Wheat Flour = ?? gm
2. 100ml Milk, Full Cream Milk or Fresh or else.
3. can i use coconut to replace the Milk
Hi Samantha,
1/2 cup wheat flour is around 60g
I use fresh milk
You can use coconut milk to replace milk.
Dear Elaine,
Thanks for sharing the recipe. I have a question, do we need to stir fry the glutinous flour for the wrapper or just use the raw one? Thank you
Jenni.
We only need to stir fry the dusting rice flour. We use raw glutinous flour for the wrapper since we will steamed the dough later.
Thanks for sharing your recipe Elaine. Can I know if the glutinous rice flour you use to make the wrapper is raw or cooked?
Thanks!
Hi,
The flour for the wrapper is raw since we will steamed the dough later. But the dusting glutinous rice flour is cooked previously.
Hi Elaine,
I only has salted butter, Is it alright to use salted butter in the custard filling? Thanks.
Hihi, is it ok if I use salted butter for the custard filling instead of unsalted? Thank you.
No, Agnes. It spoils the taste.
Thanks Elaine. Another question to ask, For the 2 eggs (100g) is with shell on 100g or just the eggs weight without shell? I am using 60g egg (with shell) so I need use 2 eggs or 1 egg + 1 yolk? Thanks.
Egg liquid 100g. So 2 eggs are enough.
Hi Elaine I made the wrapper yesterday and tonight we thought eating as dessert, the whole skin hardens and cracked. What went wrong? Thank you.
Venez,
If the mooncakes are well packaged in air-tight container, then you need to knead your dough for longer time.
Can you fill with red bean instead of custard filling? If so, can you what brand/recipe for red bean.
Yes, red bean paste if a great option for snow skin mooncakes too. Check this for the recipe.
I like your skin snow mooncake..
Thanks so much Sadariah!