traditional mooncakes

A step by step guide on how to create mooncakes! Filled with sweet lotus paste and salted duck eggs, they are the perfect way to enjoy the Mid Autumn festival.

Traditional Mooncake Recipe (with and without salted eggs)

lotus seeds

peanut oil

salt

sugar

½ tbsp honey

golden syrup ((¼ cup))

g peanut oil ((2 tbsp))

g lye water ((1 tsp))

120 g all purpose flour ((1 cup))

duck egg yolks (optional)

whole milk

Soak dried lotus seeds overnight in water.

The next day, drain the lotus seeds. Check and remove the green buds in the middle of the lotus seeds. Add them to a sauce pan with fresh water that just covers the lotus seeds. Simmer for 2 hours.

Once done simmering, blend the lotus seeds and water until it is a smooth texture. Pour the lotus seed puree through a fine mesh sieve into a saute pan.

Over medium heat, reduce the lotus mixture until it is 2/3 the original amount until it is as thick as a very thick soup. Add the peanut oil 1 tbsp at a time and stir after each tbsp is added. Make sure to stir consistently so an even amount of moisture evaporates from the lotus paste.

Next, add the salt, sugar, and honey. Stir and flip the mixture constantly until it becomes a paste. The paste should be done once it starts to pull away from the pan and hold its shape. Set aside to cool in the fridge for at least an hour.

While the paste is cooling, make the mooncake skin. Combine golden syrup, peanut oil, and lye water in a small bowl. Mix until incorporated. Add the flour and mix until a dough forms. Set aside to cool in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Making the lotus paste and mooncake skin

Once the ingredients are cool, take out your ingredients. This should include your salty eggs, lotus paste, and mooncake skin dough.

Using a scale, weigh out the ingredients for each mooncake. Place the egg and some lotus paste on the scale. Combined, they should weigh 30 grams. If you are using only lotus paste, use 30 grams of lotus paste. Adjust the amount of lotus paste if both weigh more or less than 30 grams. Add some mooncake skin dough to the scale. The total weight of all 3 ingredients should be 50 grams. Adjust the amount of skin dough if it is more or less.

After you have weighed out the ingredients for 1 mooncake, form the mooncake. Roll the lotus paste into a ball and flatten it so it becomes a disk. Place the salty egg in the center of the disk and enclose the egg with the lotus paste. Once enclosed, roll it between your hands to create a smooth ball. If you are using only lotus paste, roll the lotus paste into a ball and proceed to the next step.

Roll the mooncake dough between your hands to form a ball. Flatten it so it becomes a disk and enclose the lotus paste ball with the disk. The disk won’t completely enclose the lotus paste ball, so you’ll need to gently press the outside of the ball to stretch the skin over the lotus paste. The motion you want to make is similar to how you would put a rubber band onto a ball or a cylinder. You roll your fingers over the rubber band until it reaches the position you’re aiming for. Once you get skin around the lotus paste, roll between your hands to form a smooth ball.

Repeat this process for every mooncake until you run out of lotus paste or dough. Now it’s time to put them in the molds! Prepare a baking sheet by covering it with parchment paper. Make sure to have your molds ready.

Coat the mold with a light layer of flour. Shake out the excess. This will help the mooncake to release easily from the molds.

Place each mooncake into the molds and press down firmly onto the baking sheet. Next, lift the mooncake a little bit and push it out of the molds. Repeat this for every mooncake. Make sure to brush off excess flour from the tops of the mooncakes.

Let the mooncakes cool in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to an hour. I like to cool mine for an hour. The purpose of this step is to make sure the pattern on top holds in the oven.

Forming the mooncakes

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C).

Bake the mooncakes for 5 minutes.

Make the egg wash by combining 1 egg yolk and 3 tbsp of whole milk. Whisk until smooth.

Take the mooncakes out and brush them lightly on top with the egg wash.

Put them back in the oven and bake for another 12 minutes.

Cool them for 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then on a cooling rack to cool completely.

For the best results, put them in the fridge to rest for 24 hours before eating.

Baking the mooncakes

We just finished making this recipe. The mooncake skin came out very crumbly. How do I fix that?

These moon cakes look absolutely stunning and beautiful and delicious 👍😍😋
Can’t wait to make them! As always, thanks for sharing your ideas and recipes ❤️

(Review provided by family member of Cooking Therapy.)

This is a great recipe Mid-Autumn Festival is coming up soon I followed this recipe and it tasted good!

Beautiful presentation and easy to follow recipe 😍👍
Very much enjoy your site and have learned a lot. Thank you 😊

(Review provided by family member of Cooking Therapy.)

The dough came out an absolute sticky mess. I was apprehensive with this recipe bc the measurements weren’t weighed and went against my better jugement. 

P.s. this recipe shouldn’t be tagged as gluten free since it falls for AP flour.

I was a bit disappointed with the dough of this recipe. Not sure if the portions are correct since each time I tried to follow it (and exactly), the dough always turned out too wet and sticky to mold. Had better success with other recipes.

Look delicious and yummy.

(Review provided by family member of Cooking Therapy.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZZxU1ww21Y

How to make MOONCAKES just in time for the Mid Autumn Festival #shorts #mooncake #midautumnfestival

These Mini Cantonese-Style Mooncakes are a classic Mid-Autumn Festival treat. They feature a tender baked pastry with an often sweet, thick, rich and dense filling.

Mini Cantonese-Style Mooncakes

water

lemon

ml white vinegar

tsp baking soda

golden syrup

ml vegetable oil

ml lye water

g all-purpose flour

420 g lotus seed paste

Add sugar and water into a small pot and bring to a simmer over high heat.

Let the sugar completely dissolve and then reduce to very low heat.

Add in the lemon and vinegar, cooking until the mixture reaches 105°C on a candy thermometer, about 10-20 minutes. Once the syrup reaches 108°C, remove from heat. Don't let the mixture go above 108°C.

Add in the baking soda (dissolved in 1 tsp water).

Let the syrup cool, and then strain into a clean and sterilized glass jar.

Store at room temperature for up to 6 months or longer.

Make the golden syrup: (best done 2 weeks prior)

In a bowl, mix together golden syrup, vegetable oil and lye water.

Add in all-purpose flour and use your hands to gently mix until combined. Be careful not to over mix.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rest for 1 hour, or overnight in the fridge.

Prepare the pastry dough:

Divide the lotus seed paste into 12 equal portions and roll into balls, about 35g each.

Prepare the filling:

With your finger, indent the lotus seed paste ball and add 1/4 of a salted egg yolk.

Enclose the salted egg yolk with the lotus seed paste and roll into a ball.

If adding salted egg yolks:

Divide the pastry dough into 12 equal portions, about 15g each.

Roll into round balls.

Place the dough ball in between plastic wrap and use a rolling pin to roll it out very thinly.

Add the lotus seed paste filling in the centre, and enclose with the pastry dough.

Roll the pastry with your palms into a smooth round ball.

Lightly dust the round ball in a small bowl with 1 Tbsp of all-purpose flour. Brush off any excess flour.

Roll into a slight oval shape.

Place the dough into a 50g mooncake mold and gently press with your thumb to fill the corners.

Invert the mold onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Press down on the plunger twice (firmly) and then release the mooncake out of the mold.

Repeat with the remainder.

Assemble:

Preheat oven to 325°F/163°C.

Before baking, lightly spray the mooncakes with water.

Bake the mooncakes at 325°F/163°C for 10 minutes.

Remove the mooncakes and reduce the oven temperature to 300°F/149°C.

Let the mooncakes cool for 15 minutes.

In a small bowl, beat together egg yolk with 1 tsp water.

Lightly brush the mooncakes with egg wash (avoiding the indented areas to retain the imprinted design).

Wait 2 minutes for egg wash to dry and apply a second light coating of egg wash.

After 15 minutes, return the mooncakes back into the oven at 300°F/149°C for 12-15 minutes, until golden in colour.

Remove the mooncakes from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack.

Store cooled mooncakes in an airtight container, lined with parchment paper.

Let mooncakes sit for 2 days at room temperature before serving.

Bake the mooncakes:

I have made these mini mooncakes  and presented them to  friends and relatives during the mid autumn festival.    Many accolades received for the beautiful design and the thin skin.    Enjoy with a cup of Chinese tea!

We are getting in the mood for all things autumn and moon cakes tops the list. Love that this recipe makes little mini ones and all your helpful hints for making  the perfect tea party with family and friends.

Really nice, I love mooncakes but they are so expensive to buy, planning to make it instead now I have a recipe to folllow :)  I never knew lye was used on the dough, now that makes sense becuase of that texture.

Just gorgeous! Almost too pretty to eat. We are delighted to see that you did not add the eggs. We are good on the lotus paste but the eggs- not so much. LOL Happy Mid-Autumn festival to you and your family.

These mooncakes are gorgeous, Michelle!  Laura was standing behind me as I was reading this post, and she was really curious about the molds.  This would be a fun recipe to make.  Not only does it look cool, but the flavor would be spot-on, too!

Beautifully made moon cakes!!  The design is very sharp and the skin is very thin, excellent!!  I like that the golden syrup is also included in the recipe so I can make my mini moon cakes easily.  Thanks Michelle!

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The most viewed traditional mooncakes recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine