Traditional Black Sesame Lotus Mooncakes

I was doing some online shopping a few months back, and I thought that, since the next festival is the Mid-Autumn Festival, why not get some mooncake moulds and make some mooncakes?

Here are our mooncakes after resting for about 3 days.

Here is the mould and the changeable designs that I had bought from online. The two character patterns are not really suitable for baked mooncakes as the imprinted design on the mooncake looks faded after baking. The rest are pretty.

Roped in my little sister in for this project and we got most of the ingredients from Phoon Huat.
https://www.finedininglovers.com/recipes/dessert/chinese-food-mooncake-recipe/

Review
It took us quite a long time to complete two batches. Why two? I didn't really want to keep the filling, hence suggested to use finish the fillings. And we were both rookies is wrapping and sealing the fillings in the dough. The dough was quite thin and some parts of the dough keep breaking. Overall it was pretty fun, and VERY oily. The dough was very oily. We were a little disgusted at our oily hands at some point. Haha.. But we were happy with our masterpieces. Looks pretty delicious. Taste not too bad.

The second batch of mooncakes has lots of dough left over. So we made bunnies. Although the initial plan was to make piglets, but the piglets look.... weird.

Recipe
(From https://www.finedininglovers.com/recipes/dessert/chinese-food-mooncake-recipe/)

Prep time 90 mins

Cook time 10 mins

Total time 100 mins

Serves 12 x 50g moon cakes

Ingredients

• For the dough
• 100g All-purpose Flour
• 60g Golden syrup
• 1/2 tsp Alkaline water
• 2 g Vegetable oil
• For the filling
• 420g Black Sesame Lotus seed paste
• For the egg wash
• 1 Egg yolk
• 2 tbsp Egg white

Method

1. Use a large bowl, mix the golden syrup, alkaline water and oil well. Sift in the flour. Use a spatula to combine all ingredients. Don’t over-stir. Knead into a dough. 
2. Cover dough with a film wrap and rest for 40 minutes.
3. Cut into 12 equal portions, each 35 grams. Roll each portion into a ball shape. Set aside.
4. Preheat oven to 180°C. 
5. Prepare the egg wash: whisk the egg yolk with the egg white. Sift through a fine sieve.
6. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions. Roll each portion into a small ball shape. Cover a dough portion with a plastic film and roll into a thin disc. 
7. Wrap and seal the lotus paste ball with the dough disc. Spray the mooncake mould and place the stuffed mooncake into the mould. Lightly press the mould handle, then remove the mooncake from the mould. Transfer the stuffed mooncake onto a lined baking tray. Repeat this step to finish the remaining dough and lotus paste
8. Bake in the preheated oven for about 5 minutes. 
9. Brush the mooncakes with egg wash. 
10. Continue to bake until the pastry turns golden brown. 
11. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Store in an air-tight container. 
12. The pastry will become soft and shiny in one or two days.