Traditional Baked Mooncake Recipe with Easy & Step-by-step Homemade Dough - February 2025

Living in our beautiful country allows us to experience the many different festivals of each and every race in Malaysia. For the Chinese community in Malaysia, we celebrate Chinese New Year either in January or February and come late September or early October, we look forward to celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Mooncake Festival) which is also one of the biggest celebrations for the Chinese all over the world. We end the wonderful year with Winter Solstice celebration in December. In between those months, we have many other festivals by the other races in Malaysia to keep up with the merrymaking. Such an amazing country we are living in, don’t you agree? Today I am going to share some history about the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. Photo Credit: lifestyleasia.com About the Mid-Autumn Festival Mid-Autumn Festival existed over 3,000 years ago during the Zhou Dynasty. It was derived from the custom of moon worship but back then, it was just the emperors worshipping the harvest moon in autumn with the belief that the practise would bring them plentiful harvest the following year. Following the emperors, appreciating the moon became popular among the upper class with music and dances during the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 AD) while the common citizens just prayed to the moon for a good harvest. Only during the later period of the Tang Dynasty did the common citizens began appreciating the moon together. The 15th day of the 8th lunar month was established as the "Mid-Autumn Festival” during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) with sacrificing to the moon becoming a custom. MOONCAKES were only eaten from the Yuan Dynasty (1279 – 1368); a dynasty ruled by the Mongols and remain as the most important food of the Mid-Autumn Festival to date. Today, mooncakes are very much commercialised with the price continuing to trend upwards hence it is always a better option to bake it ourselves. Read more about the history of the Mid-Autumn Festival in this article or you can head over to any Sunway Malls during the weekend for a joyful reunion! Photo Credit: Sunway Pyramid Facebook To help kick start your mooncake making journey, I am sharing a very simple baked mooncake recipe that I learned from YouTube. Thanks to technology these days ;) What I am sharing is the recipe for the dough. As for the paste, I used ready-made ones bought from a bakery supply stores for this tutorial. Once you have mastered making the dough for the skin, then you can try making your own paste. Ingredients For baked mooncake dough: 100g high ratio (low protein) flour 60g golden syrup 30g oil 1/2 teaspoon lye water Filling: White Lotus Paste Red Bean Paste Matcha Powder Toasted Melon seeds Salted Egg Yolk Egg wash: 1 egg yolk Fresh milk Method Mix golden syrup, oil and lye water. Add flour and mix all ingredients together. Cover and let dough rest for 2 hours. Toast melon seed until golden brown. Separate egg yolk from egg white and steam for 5 minutes. Mix some toasted melon seeds into the filling paste. Depending on the size of your mould, weigh the paste and dough and form into balls. For my 160g mould, I use 85g paste + 5g melon seed + 15g egg yolk + 50g dough. Place the ball of dough in between two sheets of plastic. Use a rolling pin to flatten it. Place a ball of filling paste on the dough and wrap the filling. Use the mooncake mould to shape the dough. Brush milk on the mooncake and bake at 160°C for 5 minutes. Brush egg wash evenly and bake for another 15 minutes. Let cool. Ingredients for baked mooncake dough: Low protein flour, golden syrup, oil, lye water. Mix melon seeds into paste for that added bite and flavour. The salty bite from the egg yolk complements the light sweetness of the the filling paste. Place the dough in between two sheets of plastic. Use a rolling pin to flatten it. Softly push the dough to cover the filling. Roll to seal. Use a mooncake mould to shape the mooncake. Freshly baked mooncakes will have a light golden colour and will turn shiny golden brown overnight hence always leave your mooncakes overnight before serving. Baked mooncakes are best served after 2 days when the skin has absorbed the oil from the filling and become more moist with a deep golden brown colour. Traditional Pandan Lotus Mooncake. Once you have mastered making the mooncake dough, you can start experimenting with the filling paste and create many flavours of your own. Watch this video to understand better how to make baked traditional mooncake: https://youtu.be/joOFindxaCI

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