Snowskin Mooncake - good soft skin!

A basic snowskin dough is made with kou-fen (fried glutionous rice flour), shortening and water.  If you have made them before, you will know that it is not difficult all all.  If you haven't, then its time to get started.   

Anyway, what i meant to say, the challenge of making a good snowskin mooncake is finding a recipe that gives you soft smooth skin that will withstand the test of time in fridge until it gets eaten.  

I started with this which is very simple but would often struggle to get smooth skin.  Then I found Aunty Yochana's Ice Cream Soda Snowskin Mooncake ... I was rewarded with smooth nice skin, and 490g of tang mien flour to contribute to the landwaste.  Yet, on the 2nd day, while the skin is still soft and pliable i could see the remarkable difference in its texture. 

they say imitation is the most sincere compliment!
Goto Ann's blog to see step-by-step instruction.

I also read from some blogs whose claimed the skin stayed soft for upto a week but I compared the recipe and found the only difference is the slightly higher proportion of liquid to flour.  If you add more liquid to the flour, it gets sticky and chances are you will compensate the stickiness with some kou-fen so that it becomes manageable. Hmm, so you are back to square one ya?

This year I found Ann's recipe - it uses a combination of koufen & snowskin premix and a different method where the shortening and liquid is boiled together before adding to the flours.  I made it on Sunday, and really pleased to report that the skin is still very smooth, soft and tasty when I tried some after dinner just now! 

I am really happy with this skin - its "toink toink" like the Hada Lada ad!

It was really generous for her to share her recipe.  Strangely, she published her recipe 2 years ago... I wondered how I could have missed this!!!



Ann's Snowskin Mooncake

50g    Kao fen (糕粉-cooked glutinous rice flour)
230g  Snowskin flour ( KCT Pinpe Premix Powder ) - do not sift
50g    Icing sugar (I reduce to 25g)
46g    Crisco/shortening
300g Water (boil 500g water with 4 pandan leaves, leave to cool) and measure 300g water.  see note 1
some extra kao fen for dusting

      

Method:

• Combine kao fen and snowskin flour (KWT Pinpe Premix Powder) in a medium bowl and set aside.
• In a pot, add 4 pandan leaves (knotted) water with icing sugar and shortening together and bring them to boil until shortening melted, stir with a hand whisk.
• Pour the hot liquid mixture to the flour and use spatula to stir mixture to soft dough and leave dough to cool (you'll find the dough is quite oily at this time) then knead dough again to smooth, add more kao fen to it if the dough is still too sticky.
• Add different colour dough for different type of filling.
• Measure dough to 21g and wrap in 25g lotus paste or any other filling you prefer.
• Roll it into a ball and dust with some kao fen (kao fen 糕粉) and press firmly into mould ~ unmould it and store in an airtight container.
• Chill snowskin mooncakes before consuming. 

Note 1 :  Boiling water with pandan leaves is a natural way to add frangrance.  But if it is not avail, replace with some flavouring (e.g. banana, orange etc)