In Cookie Haven: Assorted Nuts with Hokkaido Dried Scallops Mooncakes

Friday, 17 August 2018

Assorted Nuts with Hokkaido Dried Scallops Mooncakes

It's time to break out the mooncake moulds and bake some.

I tried my hands on making these assorted nuts mooncakes. Instead of adding Chinese cured ham, I substituted it with the dried scallops that I have squirreled away from my family trip to Hokkaido, Japan.

These little nuggets of umami bombs and I cannot stop eating them. That is why I have squirreled some away so that this blog post is made possible.

Assorted Nuts with Hokkaido
Dried Scallops Moon Cake Recipe [Print Recipe]

(makes 10, 100g mooncakes)

Ingredients:

For the baked skin: (will yield 10 pieces of 40g dough)

210g all purpose flour

126g golden syrup

63g canola oil

1/2 tsp alkaline water

For the filling: (will yield 10 balls of 69g fillings)

56g walnuts, toasted and chopped

55g slivered almonds, toasted and chopped

55g pecans, toasted and chopped

42g pumpkin seeds, toasted

33g sesame seeds, toasted

77g dried scallops, diced

55g candied winter melon, diced

55g candied citrus peel, diced

40g sugar

110g fried glutinous rice flour (kou fien)

42ml canola oil

70g water

1 Tbsp brandy

1/8 tsp five spiced powder

1/2 Tbsp golden syrup

Egg wash:

1 egg, whisked

Steps to mooncakes:

For the baked skin dough:

Mix all the ingredients together and knead into a dough by hand.
Cover the dough and let it rest for at least 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, divide the dough into 10 equal pieces of 40g dough. Cover and set aside until ready to use.

For the filling:

Mix all the ingredients (except brandy and fried glutinous rice flour) together in a large mixing bowl. Let mixture sit for at least 30 minutes.
Mix in the fried glutinous rice flour and brandy to form a dough that can hold itself together when squeeze in your palm. If mixture is too dry, add more canola oil to moisten the mixture.
Measure and form 10 equal balls of 70g of fillings and set aside ready for assembling.
Roll out baked skin dough on a lightly floured surface to about 10 cm in diameter.
Place a ball of filling in the center of the rolled out dough and carefully lift it up. You may need to use a bench scraper to help scrape the dough from the work surface.
Carefully enclose the dough around the filling until the filling is totally covered by the dough.
Dust the wrapped dough with flour and place it into the mooncake mould to form the mooncake shape.
While moulding the moon cakes, preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Bake the mooncakes for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, take them out of the oven (do not turned off the oven). Brush the top and sides with egg wash and leave them out to cool for 15 min.
Return the mooncakes into the oven and bake for another 8 - 10 minutes until skin is golden brown.
Remove the mooncakes from the oven and let them cool completely on a rack. When they are completely cooled, store in airtight container at room temperature for at least 3 days before consuming. This is to allow the oil in the filling to soften the outer pastry. The process is known as '回油'.