INTRODUCTION

To complete my mooncake series, I need to blog at least one snow skin mooncake. 

Snow skin crust is only common rather recently and the mooncake need only to be chilled. Per Wikipedia:

“Snowy mooncakes first appeared on the market in the early 1980s. These non-baked, chilled mooncakes usually come with crusts made with glutinous rice:- a crust with texture similar to that of a mochi.   These moon cakes are known colloquially as “snowskin mooncakes“, “ice-skin mooncakes” or “snowy mooncakes” (冰皮 or 冰皮月餅).” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooncake)

 Gift from my nephew last year

After due consideration, I have decided to choose the durian ice cream mooncake that I used to eat the past few years. For the last 5 years, my nephew had always bought durian mooncakes from Four Seasons Hotel or Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore and gave me as gifts. After trying for a few years, I have decided to replicate the preparation this year.

But this is not an easy mooncake to prepare because it is an ice cream mooncake. Wrapping ice cream need to be fast and shape may have to be compromised。Besides the wrapping issue, another challenge of this mooncake is its ability to be cut neatly when served.  I was rather worried initially that it will not hold when I cut but it seems that they are able to stay in shape for about 15-20 minutes at room temperature and happy that my recipe works. 

I have looked through several recipes and work this recipe of my own. As I wanted to preserve the natural taste of the durian, I have opted out of cooking the durian flesh or adding all other ingredients such as eggs, butter, corn flour, custard flour and etc.to hold the cake. I have only added minimum of cream to smoothen the filling and some icing sugar to sweeten it.  Taste wise is  smooth and creamy durian flesh ice cream liked texture. 

For those durian mooncake that can be cut neatly in shape, it is very likely that it was cooked with sugar or have added other ingredients as mentioned above. The flavour of durian will be masked by custard and eggs and the texture will be altered by the flour added.

I have brought durian flesh in a fruit stall and de-seed the durian. However, the stall do sell D24 puree and Mao Shang Wan puree at S$15 and S$25 per kilogram (seedless) . Therefore, if you want, you can ask around the durian stalls around Geylang, Singapore to save your time of hunting for the right  durian. 

In this illustration, 4 mooncakes cost me only about S$10 but last year, my nephew had bought at about S$12-15 per piece from the branded hotel.  Therefore, it will definitely be a presentable gift to give it to relatives during the mid-autumn festival.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Servings: Prepare 4 mooncakes of about 8cm diameter (weigh about 160-170 grams per mooncake)

• 400 grams of pure durian flesh, deseed
• 40 grams of fresh cream （optional)
• 40 grams of icing sugar (optional)

• 75 grams of Gao Fen (糕粉) or Cooked Glutinous Rice Flour
• 75 grams of icing sugar （糖粉）
• 20 grams of vegetable shortening (白油）
• 80 grams of cold water (冷水）
• Some permitted yolk yellow food colouring （蛋黄色素）(optional)

Others

• Extra Gao Fen for dusting
• Some mould cake moulds of your choice

STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Put all the durian flesh, icing sugar and cream in a food processor, blend until your desired texture. This step can be optional if you prefer fibrous durian fillings. If that it the case, just stir these 3 ingredients until well mix. However, fibrous durian fillings when cut will become messy. Sugar and cream quantity is listed for reference and can be adjusted to suit your taste bud. If the durian is too sweet, you may want to omit or reduce the icing sugar.  You can also use 100 % pure durian flesh if it is sweet and creamy enough.

• Freeze the filling until it is firm and you are able to shape the fillings. Divide equally into 4 round balls (about 110 grams each). Send back to the freezer again until the wrapping step. Note that I have freeze the filling overnight. However, my best estimate is it may need at least 3-4 hours to get the firm texture that shaping is possible.

• When the durian filling have firmed up, in a big bowl, put vegetable shortening, sifted glutinous rice flour and icing sugar. Put the yellow colouring in the cold water, gradually add in the coloured cold water. Use a spatula to stir until well mix. Transfer to a surface lightly floured with Gao Fen, use hand to knead until  the dough is smooth. Divide into 4 equal balls and let it rest for about 10 minutes.

• Get ready a piece of clingy wrap, take a dough, shape round, place on top of the clingy wrap, cover with another side, use a rolling pin to roll it flat. Place a ball of the durian fillings, seal the edges as smoothly as possible, use had to shape it round as swiftly as possible. Dust the ball with some Gao Fen.

• Place the dough in your preferred mould, press hard and flatten the dough such that the shape conform to the mould. Dislodge the mooncake and place in air tight container. Freeze again until firm to cut. Note that as this is fresh durian ice cream type of mooncake, it had to be served out from the fridge. If you are sending it as gift, you may need some dry ice to to keep it cool.  It is best consumed 3 days within date of preparation. When freezing in the freezer, use air tight container to prevent moisture loss.

CONCLUSION

This recipe is not difficult but the wrapping need to be fast. However when you take the first bite, I believed you will appreciate the messy work. You can prepare more and if any leftover fillings, treat it as the durian ice cream.. So far none of my kids have complained about the smooth texture of the filling..

Lastly, this dough filling ratio is based on the mould (8cm diameter) that I have and you will need to find out the dough to filling ratio of your preferred mould. A bit of wastage here and there is inevitable.

This recipe was included in Page 4-5 of the “Easy Mooncake Recipes E-book”. For more mooncake recipes, you can have a copy of “Easy mooncake recipes  – A step by step guide” that was packed with 20 recipes, 45 pages at a reasonable convenience fee of USD4.00. The recipes covered various recipes from durian mooncake, traditional baked mooncake and also the less common Teochew mooncake . You can purchase by clicking the link above.You can either pay using Pay Pal or Credit card account. Please ensure that you have an PDF reader like Acrobat or iBooks in your mobile phone or iPad if you intended to read it in your ipad or mobile phone. Should there be any problems of purchasing, feel free to contact me at kengls@singnet.com.sg and separate arrangement can be made.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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