Updated post on 13-9-2016

As per reader’s request, i have decided to upload a recipe of gongzai bing with the filling of coconut . This gong zai bing is very common in Penang. You can also used other fillings as well. There is no beautiful imprints and shape is free and easy.

Updated post on 8-8-2016

Upload of new pictures using the same recipe. Those that are thicker have some fillings probably in the ratio of crust 2: filling 1 or even crust: filling = 3:1.

INTRODUCTION

This is a type of traditional mooncake without fillings. It comes with various shapes with the most common one are the piglet or koi fish … For the one with piglet, it usually come with a red cage.. Hmmm, i was rather unsure why there is such a tradition of having a piglet shape biscuit keeping in a red cage… Sorry for my ignorance of this.

The name of this type of biscuit is called Gongzai mooncake (公仔饼 or 香化饼）literally translated as “Doll Biscuit”. It is a type of soft biscuits that were usually prepared in many shapes just like playing doll…

I have never fancy my food to be shaped into animals unless necessary and taking a bite of the animal shrugged me off. Therefore, for this illustration, I have decided to use square shape mould with common mooncake festival wordings imprints..(updated on 8-8-2016, in view of many readers who prefer that shape, I have decided to buy a cheap mould of less than S$5.00 and prepare some to make this post complete)

This biscuit is nothing more than the crust of the traditional baked mooncake.. The ingredients and preparation are exactly the same. If you never taste it before, imagine you are taking a bite of the traditional Cantonese baked mooncake’s crust…If you want, you can buy the piglet mould or koi fish mould to make it like what is sold in the market.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Crusts

• 120 grams of cake flour or top flour or Hong Kong flour
• 70 grams of golden syrup
• 30 grams of peanut oil
• 4 grams of alkaline water

Egg washing

• 1 egg yolk plus 1 tablespoon of milk plus few drops of cooking oil, beat and sift

Others

• Some mooncake or animal mould of your choice.

For coconut filling gongzai bing

• About 240 grams of coconut fillings (please refer to this post  Kuih Pulut Inti (椰丝糯米糕 for recipe of coconut fillings）or other mooncake fillings of your choice
• One recipe of above dough

It will prepare about 8 gong zai bing.

STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Mix all the skin/crust ingredients in a mixing bowl. Stir and knead until well mixed. Let it rest in the mixing bowl for 20-30 minutes. Theoretically, the longer the dough is rested, the more “stretchable” the dough will be. Stretchable will mean that it is less prone to breaking during moulding.

• Pre-heat the oven to 170 degree Celsius.

• After resting, take one portion of the dough and put in your desired mould. Since I have used the less common mooncake mould, my dough is about 20 grams per biscuit and for this size, I have prepared about 10 thin biscuits. As for animal mould, it will be much bigger and you will need to trial and error on the dough quantity.

• Bake in the pre-heated oven of 170 degree Celsius for about 8-10 minutes. Take out the mooncake, let it cool for 5 minutes and apply egg wash thoroughly , send back to the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 160 degree  Celsius. Baked again until golden brown (about 10 minutes) . Note that this is for biscuit of my size, for bigger mooncake of animal size, the mooncake will need to bake for at least 10-12 minutes before egg washing.

• For coconut fillings, divide the dough into 8 equal portion, put one or two tablespoons of the coconut fillings, press it to become compact, seal the edges. Shape round, lightly press down, egg wash and bake as per the above instructions.

CONCLUSION

There is nothing to shout about this biscuit and you can mould in as many shapes as you like. The bigger the mooncake the longer is the baking time and you have to exercise some judgement.

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

This recipe was included in Page 30-31 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.

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