Mooncake Making Workshop - Scoopy's and Cream

Mooncakes (also known as yue bing) are a commonly featured treat traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Last Saturday, courtesy of a deal Michi found though Groupon, the both of us got to make our very own mooncakes in a hands-on workshop conducted by Scoopy's and Cream ice cream parlour.

They've got the cutest logo ever!

The workshop itself was a small, humble little class with a decent gathering. Aprons, gloves and ingredients were provided, self-explanatory worksheets were handed out, and the teacher and his assistants were always very helpful. In this class, we were taught how to make snowskin mooncakes, which unlike regular traditional mooncakes need no baking as their crust is made out of instantly-edible glutinous rice. The process was surprisingly simple - and really fun!

We were making tiny little mooncakes in this workshop, so the quantities of the ingredients are a lot lesser. For the crust: 35g of fried glutinous rice flour, 35g of icing sugar, and 10g of shortening should do the trick. 

Sieving the icing sugar and the rice flour...

...then adding the shortening. Mix well.

Next, prepare a mixture of 40ml of water, a tablespoon/teaspoon of condensed milk.

Add 2 drops of the food flavoring or food coloring of your choice - I used chocolate!

Make a "well" in the flour/icing/shortening mix and gradually add in the flavored liquid, kneading until...

...you get this. It's squooshy! And kinda gross looking.

I'd like to interrupt at this point to mention that although our worksheet called for us to have the kneaded dough sit in the fridge for 20 minutes (presumably to let the extra moisture in the dough evaporate or something), the time constraints of the workshop unfortunately forced us to finish up without the refrigerating part. While our teacher assured us that the dough was still edible (it was) amidst exchanged glances between our teams (it tasted like fresh lard), I think the exclusion of this step definitely made a considerable difference in how our mooncakes eventually turned out.

I'm also going to say that while most modern mooncakes have a wide range of fillings - from the traditional lotus paste to coffee fillings and even the local favorite/hated durian paste - we were provided with pre-made red bean paste in the workshop. Our worksheet has instructions on how to actually cook the red bean paste yourself, but since I'm not much of a cook and Michi doesn't fancy red bean, I'm not replicating it here. (Also, too much work.) Anyway, on to actually shaping the mooncakes:

From the kneaded dough, pinch out 28g.

From the red bean (or azuki, or hong dou sha, or that gross black-red thing), pinch out 24g.

Roll both the dough and the red bean into individual balls, then roll out the dough to a thin spread about the size of your palm.

Next, place the ball of red bean in the center of the dough, on top of a sheet of plastic.

Start wrapping it up. Twist the bag around at the top to "seal in" the red bean and...

Ta-dah!

Put the twisty ball of red bean dough into the mooncake mould, twisted side facing you (so the smooth side can capture the imprint). Squish the dough in gently but firmly so it fills the mould. Once that's done, flip the mould over, give it a few hits with your palm and the mooncakes will pop right out.

You're done!

Not going to lie, I had way more fun making the mooncakes than eating them (sorry Scoopy's). Like I mentioned earlier, I think the refrigeration could have made a difference in how the mooncakes turned out - they were a lot more like ang ku kueh in looks, texture and taste at the end than any kind of mooncake I've seen, and I kinda wish we were given a different paste instead of red bean. Still, the entire experience was totally worth it - we left the workshop feeling pretty chipper and accomplished. Maybe next time we'll sign up for their ice-cream making workshop...