Traditional Baked Mooncakes 传统烘月饼

This is the second time I baked the traditional baked mooncakes, the first time was few years back when I was living in Qatar, a group of ladies from Asian Coffee Morning came to my place and we baked quite a number of mooncakes together. It was a fun memory. Hope the ACM is doing well, I'm still grateful that through ACM I still keep in touch with a few good friends even we no longer stay in the same continent. 

The making of traditional baked mooncakes is not difficult as we think, the most important part to me is get the right browning on its crust. I baked my mooncakes around 180C for a total of 22 mins, middle rack in the oven. 

Two months before this mooncake making, I brine the chicken eggs in two separate bottles, hopping to get 12 pieces of homemade salted eggs, however, one bottle of the salted eggs didn't turn out well. So I only get 6 pieces of homemade salted eggs this round. Of course, at this time it is no time for me to brine another batch of chicken eggs for mooncakes making, so I got some store bought salted duck eggs ready for my next baking. 

The best part for this recipe is no lard added, and I added flax seed into the filling too. 

Ingredients:
big mould (125g): ~90 g filling, 45 g skin dough, make 10 pieces
small mould (60g): ~35 g filling, 30 g skin dough, make 4 pieces

Skin Dough:
350 g low protein flour (cake flour)
210 g golden syrup
100g  Rice Bran Oil (or any cooking oil)
1.5 tsp Alkaline water (lye water) (optional, to get a better shape)

Filling:
540 g Black sesame paste, divide into 6
500 g Red lotus paste, divide into 4 x 90 g, and 4 x 35 g
some white melon seed, roasted
some sunflower seed 
some flax seed
6 homemade salted egg yolks (can have more if you wish)

Egg wash:
1 egg yolk + 1 tbsp milk

Method:
Prepare the salted egg yolk: 

1. Crack the salted egg, separate the egg yolk with egg white, wash the egg yolk under  running water to get rid of the egg white, spray the egg yolk with some Chinese cooking wine. Place on a steamer and steam for 3~4 mins. Set a side to cool.

Prepare the filling:

1. Mix the paste with some white melon seed, sunflower seed and flax seed.

2. Separate the store bought paste into the portions you want, for my case I want to separate the one with egg yolk and without egg yolk. So I divide into 6 big portions for black sesame paste and make 4 big 4 small portions for the red lotus paste.

3. stuff the egg yolk into the middle of black sesame paste and wrap them up, shape into a ball. I didn't place egg yolk for red lotus paste.

4. Set aside.

Prepare the skin dough:

1. In  a mixing bowl, mix golden syrup, rice bran oil and alkaline water together, sift in the flour. Mix well and use hand to gentle knead the dough together.

2. Cover the dough with cling wrap, let it rest for an hour.

3. Divide the dough into the portions you want, for my case 10 big portions (~45 g each) and 4 small portions (~30 g each)

4. Flatten the skin dough with rolling pin between two pieces of cling wrap, place the filling in the middle and wrap up the dough, shape it into a round ball, use the mooncake presser, press and release the dough into lined baking tray. Repeat until all the dough and filling are done.

5. Bake at preheat oven at 180C for a 10 mins, bring out the mooncakes, egg wash and bake for another 12 mins or until the mooncakes surface is lightly brown. Cool on wire rack.