Makes approx. 12-13 small moon cakes of 50g gram each or 3 large moon cakes of 180g each
Ingredients:
Outer Pastry approx. 265g:
1. 120g plain flour (1 cup)
2. 30g Graham flour (1/4 cup)
3. 65g golden syrup or honey (1/4 cup)
4. 30g vegetable oil (3 TBS or 45ml) (I use sunflower seeds oil)
5. 3/4 tsp lye water (alkaline water) (3g) You can buy lye water from a Chinese grocery store.
6. 1 egg yolk (approx. 18g) (optional)
Filling approx. 400g:
1. 100g dried adzuki beans (yields approx. 250-300g of cooked adzuki red bean paste)
2. 100 - 120g date paste
3. 50ml olive oil
Directions:
Prepare the filling first:
This can be done ahead of time or the day before :-)
1. Rinse and drain 100g of the red beans.
2. In a pot, add red beans and cover it with about 1 inch of water above the beans.
3. Bring to boil, and cook under medium heat until the water is boiled down and the beans are soft, about 1.5 hour. Monitor and adjust with more water, if all the water has evaporated, before the beans are cooked.
4. Drain away any excess water and blend with a hand blender until smooth.
5. The red beans are done when you can mash them easily with a fork. Drain the cooked red beans, but keep the water.
6. Using a handheld blender, blend until smooth. Add back some red beans cooking water if it is needed to achieve a smooth consistency.
7. Heat a pan on medium high heat on the stove, add the red bean puree and 50ml of olive oil into the pan. Stir and cook until the red bean paste and oil are incorporated into the puree.
8. Add 120g date paste. mix well and cook until the paste is pulling away from the pan and coming together as one piece, looking shining and smooth, about 6 to 10 minutes, depending on your heat level and how much water you added while blending the red beans. The paste shouldn't stick to your hands.
9. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool before using. The paste will thicken quite a bit after cooling down.
Then prepare the outer pastry:
1. In a mixing bowl, add 65g of golden syrup or honey.
2. Add 30g of vegetable oil (I use sunflower seeds oil.)
3. Add 3/4 teaspoon of lye water (3g), which is alkaline water.
4. Add 30g of Graham flour
5. Add 120g of plain flour
6. Add 1 egg yolk (optional) and mix until combined. Don't overmix, otherwise it will become too flexible and lose its strength to hold the filling.
7. Wrap the pastry dough with a kitchen wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes to an hour.
Assemble:
1. Weigh 20g of pastry dough and roll into a ball. Place the pastry dough on a plate, cover with a string wrap and set aside.
2. Weigh 30g of red bean filling and roll into a ball.
3. Wrap the filling into a dough as shown in the pictures below.
4. Lightly coat it with flour.
5. Place each of them into the moon cake mold.
6. Press and make it fit evenly into the mold.
7. Gently knock the moon cakes out of the mold.
8. Place them neatly on a baking tray laid with baking paper. Sprinkle a bit of water to prevent them from cracking under baking.
9. Bake for 5 minutes at 165 degree Celsius and let them cool down for 15-30 minutes. Very important, don't skip this step, otherwise, the pattern of your moon cakes will be blurred during baking.
10. Meanwhile prepare egg wash with 1 egg yolk and 1 teaspoon of water and mix well.
11. After the moon cakes have cooled down for 15-30 minutes, very lightly coat it with just one stroke, apply the first coat of egg wash. otherwise again the pattern will be blurred during baking.
12. Bake for another 5 minutes and take it out and let it rest for another 15-30 minutes.
13. Lightly apply a second coat of the egg wash on the moon cakes.
14. Bake for another 5 minutes and take it out of the oven. You can off the oven now.
15. Once the moon cakes have cooled down, store in an airtight container for 2-3 days for the moon cake to rest and set, before eating... now is the time to train your patience!!
Additional Information:
Mooncakes overload our body, but provide little nutritional value. Moon cakes, especially the store-bought ones, are high in calories, carbohydrates and fats. There is hardly any fiber, protein or vitamins in them, which are important components of a balanced diet.
Searching the internet, I couldn't find any recipes for diabetic people, except one (see one of the links below). But whether I manage to find any recipe for diabetic people or not, I am determined on this journey to develop moon cakes more suited for people suffering from diabetics.
In this post, we try to make moon cakes that are nutritious and less sweet, so that they are more suited to be consumed by those suffering with diabetes.
Commercial mooncakes are calorie bombs, not just calorie bombs, but empty calorie bombs. This homemade moon cake recipe is densely packed with calories, but with nutritious calories. Processed sugar takes up only 9.7% in this recipe. If including the natural sweetness from the date paste, total sugar content in this recipe is between 24.8% - 27.8%.
But still, please consume these moon cakes in moderation as a dessert. As advised by healthxchange.sg, if you plan to eat a piece of moon cake as a sweet treat after your meal, as they are high in carbohydrates, since they are made of flour, try cutting down the rice or noodle from your meal. This will prevent you from consuming too much carbohydrates and prevents a blood sugar level hike.
In this recipe, we are making red bean paste moon cakes. But you can substitute red bean with mung beans, lotus seeds or even sweet potato too.
Red beans are one of the best plant-based sources of protein. They're rich in essential amino acids, antioxidants, and nutrients that may help reduce blood pressure, LDL cholesterol levels, and heart disease risk.
Many recipes call for the soaking of the red beans, but I have found that it is not necessary at all.
The golden syrup used to make the moon cake outer pastry can be easily made using homemade golden syrup. If you are using honey instead of golden syrup, just be aware that your moon cake pastry will take a longer time to soften. So you will have to wait for 3-4 days instead of 2-3 days, before they are tasty enough to be eaten.
These moon cakes are not overly sweet, unlike the commercial ones. The fillings of these moon cakes are naturally sweetened with dates. The sugar content in dates naturally occurs because they are whole, unprocessed fruits. Dates are nutritious fruits with potential benefits. Dates are a source of antioxidants that may protect against disease. Research has found that dates help support brain, digestive, and heart health.
Remember to use just a light dash when applying egg wash on the moon cakes. The egg wash is done in two steps because it is very delicate and can easily destroy the pattern on the moon cakes, if too much egg wash is applied. For this reason too, it is very important to let the moon cakes cool down for 15-30 minutes in between baking before applying each round of egg wash.
I have used use olive oil in the red bean paste filling many times and it turned out great, one couldn't taste the olive oil at all. For a less sweet version, 120g of date paste is sufficient.
The ratio of outer pastry to filling for each moon cake we use in this recipe is 40/60, i.e. 70g of outer pastry to 110g of filling. If we are making the small moon cakes, we would use 20g outer pastry to 30g filling. But you can also use 30/70 rule: 54g of outer pastry to 126g of filling for big moon cakes or 15g of outer pastry and 35g of filling for small moon cakes. For diabetics, this is the most ideal proportion, since the outer pastry does contain processed sugar.
In our family, we love the outer pastry, so sometimes we even make it 50/50, i.e. 25g of pastry and 25g of filling, but you can also use a ratio of 30/70, i.e. 15g pastry to 35g filling.
For this wholewheat moon cake, it is actually easier to make smaller moon cakes as the adzuki bean paste made sweetened with dates can be a little on the soft side.
You can omit the lye water, but it won't taste like moon cake. Just 2g is the bare minimum, but ideally it should be 3-4g, but not more than that, as they will make your moon cakes too dark.
A 6g of lye water will give way too dark moon cakes like these below:
Unfortunately, you can't use more than 20% of wholewheat flour, as the dough won't be elastic enough and will be very difficult to handle, although it would not affect the taste of the moon cakes.
You can reduce the lye water to 1/2 teaspoon (2g), but 3g would be the most ideal in terms of taste.
I tried using olive oil for the outer pastry, but it didn't turn out well in terms of taste, thus I stick with using other vegetable oil such as sunflower seed oil. I think avocado oil will turn out fine, but it is too expensive.
Salt isn't needed for the outer pastry - it wouldn't add much in terms of taste, so I omitted it completely since this moon cakes are made with diabetics in mind.
In the pictures below, I used 120g of dates to sweeten the red bean paste filling. My two good friends who tried it really liked it. I think you could reduce the sweetness down to 100g of dates too.
References:
https://min.news/en/health/53f0edc516fe26cfca68aa0ba55c4666.html
https://delcies.com/blog/diabetic-friendly-mooncake
https://tipsmake.com/how-to-make-moon-cakes-for-dieters-and-diabetics
https://www.allthingshealth.com/en-my/health-and-balance/energy-and-immunity/mooncake-festival/
Prepare the filling:
Pack of 600g dates
Prepare 100g of dried adzuki beans.
Rinse and drain them.
In a pot, add 4 cups (1 litre) of water or about 1 inch of water above the beans.
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce to a simmer.
Cook, covered with the lid slightly ajar (to prevent it boiling over), for 1 hour. Keep an eye on the water level as you may need to add more during the simmering.
The red beans are done when you can easily mash them with a fork. 100g of dried mung beans yield 275g of cooked red beans. Drain the cooked beans, but keep the water aside for later use.
Using a handheld blender, blend until smooth. You may need to add back some of the red beans cooking water to achieve a smoother consistency.
Heat a pan over medium-high heat, add red bean puree and 50ml of olive oil. Stir and mix well.
In a separate bowl, Add 120g of date paste
Mix well.
In a pan, add the mixture.
Stir and cook it until it is dissolved into the paste. Continue cooking until the paste is pulling away from the pan and coming together as one piece, looking shining and smooth, about 6 to 10 minutes, depending on your heat level and how much water you added while blending the red beans.
Remove the pan from the heat and let cool before using. The paste will thicken quite a bit after cooling down.
Form the filling into balls of 110g each for big moon cake and 30g each for small moon cake.
Prepare the outer pastry:
Add 65g of golden syrup
Or 65g of honey instead, if you don't have golden syrup at hand.
Add 30g of vegetable oil such as sunflower seeds oil
You can buy lye water from a Chinese grocery store.
Add 3/4 teaspoon of lye water (3g), which is alkaline water.
Stir and mix together.
Add 30g of Graham flour
Add 120g of plain flour
Add 1 egg yolk (You can omit the egg yolk if you wish)
Mix until combined. Don't overmix, otherwise it will become too flexible, lose its strength to hold the filling.
Don't knead the dough – it should be a bit wet and moist right after combining with light kneading, but turn drier after 40 – 50 minutes of resting.
Now the pastry dough is done.
Wrap it with a kitchen wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes to an hour.
Weigh 20g of flour (We like thick outer pastry, so we did 25g)
Place the pastry dough on a plate, cover with a string wrap and set aside.
Take a pastry dough, press out a hole in the middle.
Gently wrap the dough around the filling and seal it up into a ball.
Done :-)
Cover with a string wrap and set aside.
Lightly coat it with flour.
Place each of them into the moon cake mold.
Press and make it fit evenly into the mold.
Gently knock the moon cakes out of the mold.
Place them neatly on a baking tray laid with baking paper. Before placing them into the oven, lightly sprinkle a bit of water to prevent them from cracking under baking.
Bake for 5 minutes at 165 degree Celsius.
Meanwhile prepare egg wash with 1 egg yolk and
1 teaspoon of water and mix well.
After the moon cakes have cooled down for 15-30 minutes, very lightly apply the first coat of egg wash.
Bake for another 5 minutes and take it out.
Let it cool for another 15-30 minutes.
Lightly apply the second coat of egg wash to the moon cakes.
Bake for another 5 minutes and take it out of the oven.
Take them out and let cool. Do not bake for more than 5 minutes each time. Otherwise the moon cakes will expand too much and crack. You can off the oven now.
And they are done :-)
A day later, they are looking more golden and shining :-)
Store in an airtight container for 2-3 days for the moon cake to rest and set, before eating... now is the time to train your patience!!
These are moon cakes after resting for 2 days, look how golden and shining they are. The pastry is soft and firm, perfect for consumption now.
