The process of making cartoon panda mooncakes is quite straightforward: choose your desired filling, pair it with the prepared cheese dough tightly wrapped around it, and mold it into a cake. Then, cleverly use the shapes cut from the cocoa bean dough as embellishments, giving the mooncakes various adorable appearances. After this step, gently spray the mooncakes with water, place them on foil, and send them into the microwave to bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes, and you will have a completed product.
Now turning to the cooking journey of Cantonese mooncakes, the first task is to let the salted egg yolks soak in corn oil for an hour. Next, gather all-purpose flour, golden syrup, and peanut oil together, mix thoroughly, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest for two hours, referred to as “resting the dough.” During this time, prepare the filling to wrap around the egg yolks, also covered with plastic wrap. Then, use the rested dough to wrap the filling and shape it using a mold. The mooncake’s initial form needs to undergo a preliminary baking — five minutes at 165 degrees, take it out to brush with egg wash, and return it to the oven for another ten minutes to produce a fragrant finished product.
As for the birth of pumpkin mooncakes, it starts with selecting the pumpkin, peeling, cutting it into pieces, steaming it until soft, mashing it into a puree, and incorporating it with glutinous rice flour to knead into a dough. Take an appropriate amount of the homemade filling and place it in the pumpkin dough, wrapping it carefully and shaping it with a mold. The final stage is a gentle steaming in the microwave, with twelve minutes of soft heating, and golden, tempting pumpkin mooncakes are ready to declare completion.
