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A traditional mooncake recipe is a cherished treat for the Mid-Autumn Festival, symbolizing unity. These pastries feature a tender, thin crust filled with sweet fillings like lotus seed paste and salted egg yolk, crafted for a delicious and beautiful dessert.

A photo of three Traditional Mooncakes. — Traditional Mooncake

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Mooncake

Mooncake is a traditional Chinese dessert, typically enjoyed during the Mid-Autumn Festival, symbolizing the full moon. This festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, honors the harvest and family reunions.

As a must-have treat for many Chinese people worldwide, mooncakes have a long history and have evolved over time. Today, many bakeries and upscale restaurants offer mooncakes in luxurious, elegant boxes, often at a premium price.

It’s become a yearly tradition to buy and send mooncakes to family, relatives, and friends during this festive season.

I always look forward to this holiday because it brings the family together, giving us a chance to reconnect. Another thing is enjoying the beautifully packaged mooncakes, each with its own unique touch, making it exciting to receive them from different places.

Chinese pastry has a special place in my heart. If you love Chinese pastry, you will want to have a look at Strawberry Snow Skin Mooncake or Red Bean Pastry with Egg Yolk.

Why You Will Love This Recipe

The skin is a perfect moist and color – With the right flour combination, the skin does not get hard after several days. The color of the skin is also a perfect brown.
The overall taste is less sweet – Most mooncakes are very very sweet. I have adjusted this recipe so the sweetness is just right.
Inexpensive – When you make your own mooncake at home, you save a lot of money. Store-bought mooncakes are mostly expensive because of the beautiful packaging.
Safe with no preservatives – Making your own mooncake will require no preservatives, because you will not wait too long to eat it.

Recipe Ingredients

Ingredient Notes

Golden syrup – Golden syrup is an inverted sugar made from sugar, lemon juice, and baking soda. In mooncakes, golden syrup helps extend shelf life by preventing the flour from going stale. It also absorbs the oil from the filling, keeping the mooncake’s skin soft.

Lye Water – Lye water is alkaline water. This will help neutralize the acidity in the golden syrup. Lye water also helps darken the color of the mooncake skin.

Peanut Butter – Peanut butter in the ingredients help give a nutty caramel flavor to the skin, making it more balanced with the sweetness of the filling.

Cake Flour – Cake flour provides the sufficient gluten that will keep the skin soft.

Bread Flour – Combining cake flour and high protein flour or bread flour turns out making the pastry even more perfect. I like the texture of the skin because it does not harden after many days.

Filling – Now you can purchase the ready-made filling online or in the Asian grocery store a month before mid-Autumn festival. There are many flavors for the filling. The most commonly used is lotus paste. The next common filling is red bean paste or mung bean paste.

Salted Egg Yolk -Bake salted egg yolks for 5 minutes before putting it in the center of the filling. This way, your mooncake can have longer shelf life.

Mooncake Mold – There are various mooncake molds with beautiful designs nowadays. You can easily get them online. Ask the seller for the total mooncake weight of the mold. It is usually sold in 50 gr, 75 gr, and 100 gr.

The mooncake mold usually consists of one piece of beautiful pattern. It looks like a big coin. And a piston to fill the mooncake dough.

Variations for the Filling

Mix some sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds into the filling to make variations for the filling.

Be sure to check out the full recipe and ingredient list below

How to Make

First, let’s make the skin. Pour golden syrup, lye water, and coconut oil in a bowl. Put one egg yolk into the bowl. (image 1, 2)
Scoop creamy peanut butter into the bowl (image 3). Mix everything in the bowl together.
Sieve the flour into the bowl (image 4). Mix well using a spatula. Knead with your hands until the dough is no longer sticky. Cover with plastic to rest for 1-2 hours.

photo collage of making skin of the mooncakes.

Roast the salted egg yolk in the oven 160°C for 5 minutes (image 5). Before roasting, spray with water to keep it moist.
Roast sunflower seeds if you want to use them in the filling.
Knead the sunflower seeds in the filling (image 6). The size of the filling depends on the size of your mold.
Wrap the salted egg yolk with the filling (image 7). Round it. Set aside.

photo collage of preparing the filling and using the mooncake mold.

After preparing the filling, the skin should be ready to shape.
Weigh the skin around 35% of the mold size. If your mold size is for 100 gr mooncake, the skin should be 35 gr.
Round the dough and press, flatten it with a rolling pin. Put the filling in the center, cover with the skin and seal tightly (image 8).
Make sure the filling is completely covered.
Round it and use the mold to shape the mooncake (image 9, 10). Put the shaped mooncake on a baking tray (image 11).
Bake in the preheated oven 180°C for 8-10 minutes until they look firm enough.
Take out the mooncake from the oven and brush with egg wash (image 12).
Put the mooncake on a cooling rack to cool down completely. Keep in an airtight container for at least one day.
During resting time, the oil from the filling will transfer to the skin, making the mooncake shiny and moist. Enjoy the mooncake starting on the second day!

Expert Tips

Dust the mooncake mold with flour. Shake off the excess flour with a brush, leaving thin layer of flour on the mold. This will make the dough slide easily out of the mold.
Also dust the piston of the mooncake mold with flour and dust off the excess.
Put the rounded dough in the mold. Plunge the mooncake mold downward on the baking tray. Press for a while to let the pattern imprint the dough and the dough will follow the shape of the mold. To get a perfect shape of the dough, you can press gently a few times downward.
Sieve the egg wash mixture using a fine sifter. This way you get a very smooth egg wash.
When brushing the mooncake, brush thinly. The point is not to spoil the pattern. Do not let the egg wash soak the crevices of the pattern. Use a kitchen towel to absorb excess egg wash.

FAQs

Common fillings include lotus seed paste, red bean paste, and black sesame paste. You can also use mixed nuts, fruits, or even chocolate and custard for a modern twist.

Homemade mooncakes can last up to a week at room temperature in airtight containers. For longer storage, keep them in the refrigerator, but be aware that this might affect their texture.

A shiny glaze can be achieved by applying an egg wash (beaten egg with a bit of water) before baking. For a vegan alternative, a mixture of maple syrup or honey and almond milk works well.

Cracking can occur if the dough is too dry or overbaked. Spray some water when you see the crack starts occurring.

Storage

Keep the mooncake in an airtight container in room temperature. It can stay fresh for up to 2 weeks. If you want to keep it longer, keep it in the chiller.