Colourful Snow skin mooncakes Recipe *NATURAL FOOD COLOURING*

Mooncakes

Have you bought or made any mooncakes for your friends and family? Mooncake is a type of Chinese snack or dessert pastry filled with a sweet or savoury filling which is commonly eaten during the mid-autumn festival. The Mid-autumn festival falls on the 15th of the eighth lunar month every year and it is on 23rd September this year which is celebrated by China and Asian people across the globe.

There are several different kinds of mooncakes which include the classic baked one and the snow skin type of mooncakes. Check out my post here if you are interested to make the “baked” version.

Natural food colouring for your mooncakes

Nowadays, people are emphasising the use of healthy and natural food ingredients as part of the choice for their meals. I wanted to make beautiful and vibrant colour for my snow skin mooncakes, but I refuse to resort to the easier method of buying the artificial food colouring. Hence, I researched into several methods and the following are the best ways to get your desired colour from natural ingredients!

1. White: natural, no food colouring!
2. Pink: red cabbage stock + lemon juice
3. Red: beetroot juice
4. Yellow: tumeric powder
5. Green: matcha powder
6. Blue: red cabbage stock + baking soda
7. Indigo: red cabbage stock

Time for some scientific experiment to colour your mooncakes!

Indigo

1. Simmer red cabbage juice in water at low-medium heat for 20 minutes.
2. Strain red cabbage and leave the stock cooling down to room temperature.
3. Separate the stock into three batches.

Blue

1. Add 1/8 tsp of baking soda power each time until you get the colour to your liking. (I added about 1/2 tsp in total)
2. Stir the mixture until baking soda powder dissolves.

Pink

1. Add 1/8 tap of lemon juice each time until you get the pink colour you desired.
2. Stir the mixture. red colour

Red

1. Grate beetroot and strain the excess water using a strainer.

Colourful dough-making

Yellow

1. Add 1/8 tap of {tumeric powder} with your dough. Be patience. Don’t add too much at a time. Otherwise, you might be overwhelmed with the tumeric taste.
2. Keep kneading the dough until the colour mixes well with the dough.
3. For all the other colour, simply replace { } with the juice mentioned above and repeat the same process.
4. TIPS: If you accidentally add too much of your natural food colouring, add more of the dough you made to balance out the colour!

Once you have created dough with different colours, it is time to start mixing around. In order to create the beautiful colour range, you just need to pull small pieces of dough from each colour, in total, one dough should weigh 20g (for e.g., 15g White, + 2g pink + 2 g blue).

Beware not to knead the dough again when you are combining the different colour. Simply press the dough on different egdes of the main dough (the one that weighs more than 10g), pull it for 1 or 2 rounds, and roll it into a ball again. (You can then follow my process below under the heading “combination of filling and dough).

Snow skin Mooncakes

Hello everyone, do you prefer snow skin mooncakes or the classic baked mooncakes? Further to my previous post, I’ve spent another full evening to make snow skin mooncakes using “natural food colouring”!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 2 hours hrs

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine Chinese

Servings 20 pieces

Ingredients

  

Outer skin (for 15 mooncakes)

• 50 g Rice flour
• 25 g Wheat flour
• 50 g Glutinous rice flour:
• 25 g Oil
• 180 g Whole milk
• 20 g Sugar
• 25 g Condensed milk:

Custard filling

• 35 g Wheat flour
• 120 g Whole milk
• 50 g Unsalted butter
• 50 g Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 60 g Milk powder

Natural food colouring

• White: Natural, no food colouring
• Pink: Red cabbage stock + lemon juice
• Red: Beetroot juice
• Yellow Tumeric powder
• Green Matcha powder
• Blue Red cabbage stock + baking soda
• Indigo Red cabbage stock

Instructions

 

Custard Fillings

• Add 60g milk powder, 35g wheat flour, 120g whole milk, 60g melted unsalted butter, 50g sugar, 3 eggs into a mixing bowl. Use a spatula to stir the mixture.
• Pour the mixture into a pan and cook at low heat. Keep stirring the mixture until it solidifies.
• Transfer the custard fillings into a bowl and cover the surface with a cling film. Keep it refrigerated.

Snow skin

• Add 50g rice flour, 25g wheat flour, 50g glutinous rice flour, 180g whole milk, 20g sugar and 25g condensed milk to a large mixing bowl and stir it.
• Pour it into a small bowl and steam on medium heat for 30 minutes. Cover the top with a small plate to prevent the water droplets from dripping onto the surface.
• After 30 minutes, transfer the bowl to a surface and pour 25g of oil.
• Starts kneading the dough until the oil vanishes and the surface is smooth.

Combination of filling & dough

• Divide custard fillings into small portions (each of which should weigh 25g) and roll it into a ball shape.
• Pull a small portion of dough (should weigh 20g) and roll it into a ball shape.
• Press the dough ball against your palm to produce a flat layer.
• Wrap one custard ball within the flat layer and seal it.

Final Steps

• Pat some flour gently onto the dough ball and knock out the excess flour.
• Place it under a mooncake mold and press it firmly to stamp the mooncake.
• Keep the mooncakes in the fridge for an hour.

Keyword Mooncakes, Mooncakes recipe, Snow skin mooncakes

Equipment: I took all the photos above using Sony Alpha 7 II | Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera.

#homemademooncake #classicmooncake #kuebulan #月饼 #中秋节