Mooncakes Part II

Sorry it has taken me this long to post! I have lots and lots of things to post about, but I felt like I owed it to you guys to finish up one project before starting another, so without further ado, I present to you Mooncakes part II

Using a bench scraper or something else of the like, divide your dough into rough 1 1/2 to 2 T increments. (using a half recipe, I got about 8)

Flatten your piece of dough into a rough circle-esque shape. It's okay if it's oblong.

Place about 1 Tablespoon of your preferred filling of choice on the flattened dough. (I used a homemade pineapple as well as adzuki bean filling) Roll into a ball to get....

.......Ta Da! Dough balls!

Flour your molds!

Dust with dough/filling balls with flour before pressing into floured molds. Here's the fun part! Ready, set, BANG!

Twice on the side.....
......aaand once on the top.

Brush any excess flour off the tops of your mooncakes with a pastry or silicon brush.

And voila! They are (almost!) ready to bake. "But wait!" you say. "I have no specialty wooden molds from Asia!" Not to worry friends.....

.....Behold! I give you the cookie cutter. It may be a bit of a hassle finding a set of cookie cutters that are congruent in size though (since you do have to bake these in their molds). If you really don't want to buy that many cookie cutters, then I'm sure you could just press them in shape before freezing (to retain shape) and baking.

Anyways, place a dough ball inside your cookie cutter.

Press! (make sure you fill all the corners if using square ones)

Brush the non cookie cutter ones with soymilk(preferably sweetened) for a better sheen.

THIS IS A CRUCIAL STEP!!!
REFRIGERATE THESE WHILE YOUR OVEN IS PREHEATING!!! I really can't overstress this, because no refrigeration causes the mooncakes to deform while baking.

SO, preheat your oven to 375 degrees and REFRIGERATE YOUR MOONCAKES!

When your oven has preheated, bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven and flip the cookie cutter ones over and bake for another 3 or so minutes until nice and golden.

Remove to a rack and let them cool.

....and in true Asian fashion, package them up nicely to give away! (or if you're like me, pick the ugliest one and eat it!)

I challenge YOU to make these! Go on, my Asian food loving friends!

Lunar Festival= Mooncakes! (Recipe Part I)

This past Sunday was the actual day of celebration for the Mid-Autumn or Moon Festival, but our town had a major power outage due to the hurricane or something, so celebration was postponed partly because of no light and partly because you simply couldn't see the moon (which is pretty much the whole point of the Moon Festival)!

Anyways, I had the honor of going to our local public school to teach the Chinese Club how to make mooncakes! Of course, I made some at home beforehand so that I would get to eat some before all of the ravaging teenagers finished them off haha.

Here are some of the ones made at the high school:

These are the molds I used for making the mooncakes. Flour them lightly, fill them with your dough-filling package and tap twice on the side and once on the front.

Here's a peek inside of mine (pineapple and sweetened mung bean fillings)!

Now, recipe time!

Vegan Mooncakes
12 1/2 - 13 T EB (in stick form, slightly softened)
2/3 C vegan powdered sugar (sifted)
2 C unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 c plus 1 T Vanilla pudding powder (such as Simply Organics)
1 T Soymilk powder, plain (if you have the sweetened variety, sift out the sugar)
1 Ener-g egg or 3-4 T soy yogurt

1. Cream the EB and sugar until light and (surprise!) creamy, 2-3 minutes.
2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, pudding powder, and soymilk powder.
3. Gradually beat the flour mixture into the EB mixture in several additions. (It won't be completely compact; don't worry; it's normal for the dough to look crumbly)
   
4. Stir in your egg replacer of choice.
   
5. Knead it lightly until it comes together.
6. Flour lightly, wrap and refrigerate for 3-4 hours or overnight.
   

TO BE CONTINUED.........

Method to the Madness: How to make Taiwanese Bread, part one

*I must say something about the filling of this bread. Though it may sound slightly repulsive, it really is quite sumptuous. If you can find a high quality brand at your local asian grocery, it will be well worth it. The taste? Sweet, smooth, and delectable; and if you're making it yourself (using brown sugar), there are caramel-y undertones. yum! Anyways, onto the directions.

While I haven't quite perfected the dough recipe to my liking, I thought that I would post pictures of several of the steps. Sorry about some missing pictures; my friend was helping me with the shots and several were too blurry to be used. Now, without further ado (please excuse the name; it really is much better than it sounds).....

Taiwanese Red Bean Bread
What you need:
vegan sweet yeast dough
preferred filling of choice (sweetened adzuki bean paste)
sesame seeds

Roll out a slightly-smaller-than-a-tennis-ball size of dough into a circle. Dollop on about 1-2 tablespoons of your preferred filling. (Traditionally, this is filled with sweet red bean[adzuki] paste which can be found at an asian grocery. If you either don't like it or can't find it, you could also try some not-ella or something like that.)

Enclose the filling in the dough and then form it into a ball.

Roll each dough "ball" into an oval shape.

Run a pizza cutter or sharp knife through the dough, making 3 slashes. Don't cut through the ends; the dough should still be connected.

Twist with your fingers and sort of tuck it in a coil shape. Sprinkle with sesame and let rise. After letting it rise for an hour, bake in a 375 oven for about 15-20 minutes.

..... and voila! Here is your finished product!