Taro/Yam Paste Fillings 芋头馅料

Happy Moon Cake festival !

Next Monday in lunar calendar is 15^th of the 8th month which marks a big day for the Chinese celebrating the Moon Cake Festival or Mid Autumn Festival 中秋节.  For those Chinese who celebrate this big occasion, moon cake is the main bakery product not to be missed. Moon cake is analogous to turkey for the Thanks Giving day or Christmas Day.

Since two months ago, I started to see assorted moon cakes ranging from traditional flavor Lotus paste moon cake to western flavor Cheesy Choc Oreo flooding the local market. Rather than the wide variety of fillings of the moon cakes, I was more attracted to their elegant and stylish moon cake boxes instead. These gift boxes are getting so much more ornamental to the point that they now become the deciding factor for the purchase rather than the delicacy element! These moon cakes were not sold cheap in the market.  I reckon a huge portion was attributed to the glossy packaging cost.



2 weeks ago, I started to make my first batch of homemade traditional baked moon cake 广式月饼. I used the same moon cake recipe given by Helen, one of my best cooking pals in New Zealand.  She shared that recipe with us when she demonstrated the making of homemade moon cake at my ex-Auckland home last year. Do click here for the recipe I posted last year.  



I was glad that it was much easier to find the necessary moon cake ingredients and mould in Malaysia. I got these moulds cheaply from a bakery supplies shop just minutes away from my house.

Last week, I made another batch of moon cakes, this time I tried out snow skin moon cake冰皮月饼 . This type of chilled moon cakes was much easier to make, no baking required. I opted for an easy way out by using a pack of readily mixed snow skin flour and by merely adding water and shortening, the skin dough would be ready. 



If you wish to make your own snow skin dough, click here for the recipe shared by Helen also. This time, I decided to make own moon cake fillings.  The following was the taro/yam paste fillings adapted from moon cake making video by Agnes Chang.    

I shared both types of my homemade moon cakes with my colleagues and I was pleased to receive good comments from them. The best voted mooncake was snowy moon cake with taro and melon seeds fillings ! J

 

I would like to dedicate this post to all my TWOA level 3 computing and cooking members: Alice, Doris, Helen, Jane, Jenny Wu, Jenny Yip, Julie, Lily, Linda, Vera, Penny, Julia and Ellen.

 
“I really miss those happy moments we had; taking turns to host the cooking and lunch sharing functions every Thursday. With this moon cake I would like to wish you all “

A Happy Moon Cake Festival! 祝你们中秋节快乐！

TARO (YAM) PASTE FILLINGS Ingredients: 1kg Taro/Yam 400g sugar 180ml vegetable cooking oil Method:   1.   Discard taro skin, try to get rid of the hard skin else paste will not be fine and smooth. 2.   Cut into pieces and steam until soft. Test the steamed taro by using a chopstick or fork if taro breaks easily, taro is cooked. 3.   Mash or blend the steamed taro when hot. If Taro gets cool down, mashed taro has more particles texture not so smooth. 4.   Blend until taro feels fine and smooth without particles feeling. 5.   Add in sugar and vegetable oil into a pot and cook over the stove. 6.   Stir and cook the mixture for about 15-20 minutes. 7.    When the mixture turns into dough form and not so sticky, paste is ready. 8.    Cool down and leave aside to serve as moon cake fillings.   Tips: Choose bigger Taro, the bigger the better. Test freshness of Taro by scribing the bottom of the taro, if powdery feeling the Taro is good. 芋头馅料 提示： 选择大的芋头，越大越好。测试新鲜芋头底部，如果感觉粉状就是好的芋头.成份： 1千克芋头 400克糖 180毫升蔬菜烹调油 方法： 1。把芋头去皮，硬皮使馅料不会细腻。 2。切成片，蒸至软。用一根筷子或叉子测试。芋头易碎便是芋头蒸熟。 3。趁芋头还热时尽快捣碎芋头。如果等到芋头降温才捣碎，馅料便有更多的粒状，质地不那么细腻。 4。把蒸熟芋头捣碎直到细腻无颗粒的感觉。 5。捣碎芋头放入锅内加入糖和油不停搅拌，煮约15-20分钟。 7。当馅料成面团形和不那么粘时，馅料已好了。 8。待冷却下来，放在一边以用作月饼馅料。