Boil the red beans for four to five hours, then wash and set aside. Add enough water, start the cooking program, cook the red beans until they are fully cooked, mash into red bean paste, and let it cool. Next, make the mooncake skin: mix 0.5 grams of edible alkali with 5 grams of water, add 100 grams of homemade inverted sugar syrup and 50 grams of peanut oil, after thorough mixing, gradually mix in 150 grams of flour until the dough is not sticky. Knead until smooth, cover with plastic wrap, and let it sit for one to two hours.
Heat 120 grams of peanut oil in a pan to moderate temperature, add the red bean paste, continue stir-frying until slightly dry, then add 120 grams of sugar, continue stir-frying until not sticking to the spatula, then remove from heat and let it cool. Divide the dough into 15 grams per portion, a total of twenty portions; the filling into 35 grams per portion, also twenty portions. The initial attempts at wrapping may not be aesthetically pleasing, this step was not recorded.
After wrapping, dust the mooncakes with a thin layer of flour to prevent sticking to the mold. Spray a little water on the surface to prevent drying out. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius, place the mooncakes in, and bake for about ten minutes to set. Then prepare the egg yolk mixture, mix one egg yolk with two spoonfuls of water.
Gently brush the surface of each mooncake with the egg yolk mixture, then return to the 170-degree oven, bake for ten more minutes, until the mooncake surface turns a tempting golden yellow. Freshly baked mooncakes may be slightly hard and crisp, but after overnight, the oil inside the mooncakes seeps out, making them increasingly soft. Checking if the red bean paste is ground evenly is also part of the fun of making and enjoying these mooncakes.
