Strawberry Jelly Mooncake Recipe

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Time flies and the Mid Autumn Festival (中秋節) is just around the corner. Mandy and I made a batch of strawberry jelly mooncake over the weekend, it was great fun. Though strawberry jelly mooncake is not traditional mooncake, it is something special to celebrate with together with the other traditional mooncakes. Kids love them a lot because it is served chilled, bright in colors, sweet… all-in-all, it is a dessert treat to them Image may be NSFW.
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Jelly Mooncake has been in trend recently due to it’s a quick and easy recipe, mostly, it is an accomplish-able recipe if you followed through the steps and methods. In the traditional baked mooncakes, the steps and ingredients are tedious, even though you have done everything correctly but there will be still some factors that could affect the success rate. Another non-baked recipe you may try is the non-baked snow skin mooncakes (冰皮月饼) if you are able to source where to get the pre-made mooncake paste filling locally, it is also an almost fail-proof recipe.

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During the night of the Mid Autumn Festival (中秋節), the moon is big and round. It is the best time to go outdoors at night, enjoying the bright moonlight while sipping a cup of tea and nibbling on the mooncakes. The kids will enjoy themselves lifting lanterns and walk around the neighborhood. You may want to make some glass jar pagoda lanterns to hang around the garden too.

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Happy Mid Autumn Festival in advance, I hope you enjoy every moment of your life to the fullest! This year, the Mid Autumn Festival will be on September 19, 2013, which is corresponding to the Lunar calendar of the 15th day of the 8th month.

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Strawberry Jelly Mooncake Recipe

Makes 5 | Prep Time:1 hour (including chilling time between layers)

Ingredients:

(A) Jelly Egg Yolks
1 tsp Agar-agar powder [buy it hereImage may be NSFW.
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40g sugar
1/8 tsp salt
100g carrot (diced, boiled till cooked, pureed) or substitute with 1-2 drops of orange food coloring
150ml Water (you can add this water when you blend the carrot to make puree)

(B) White Filling
50g Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Agar-agar powder
1/8 tsp salt
100ml Coconut milk
200ml Water
2 Screwpines / Pandan Leaves tie into knot (optional)

(C) Strawberry Skin
40g Sugar
1/2 Tbsp Agar-agar powder
100ml Coconut milk
250ml Water
60g Strawberry Cake & Pie Filling [buy it hereImage may be NSFW.
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Method:

1. Combine ingredients (A) except coconut milk into a pot. Bring it to a boil. Add in coconut milk and bring to a boil. Turn off heat, strain jelly liquid (optional).

2. Pour into a small ball-shaped ice cube mold. Let it cool down then refrigerated it till set. Unmold jelly egg yolks when ready. Rinse it briefly under cold running tap water to remove excessive jelly from the balls. Keep it in the fridge until needed.

3. Bring ingredients (B), except coconut milk, to a boil. Add coconut milk and bring it to a boil again. Turn off heat, strain jelly liquid (optional).

4. Spoon some liquid into the small molds, leave it to set a little. Place in jelly egg yolks and fill the liquid to cover it. Leave to set, unmold, set aside. ( We made 7 fillings )

5. Bring ingredients (C), except coconut milk, to a boil. Then add coconut milk and bring it to a boil again. Reserved about 1/3 liquid (for the white layer) into a container. Add strawberry filling/jam into the remaining 2/3 liquid, mix until it is well dissolved. Turn off heat, strain liquid.

6. Spoon a little red jelly liquid into the molds. Let it set a little before placing in the filling. Pour in the white jelly liquid, leave to set a little. Lastly, fill in red jelly liquid to the brim of each mold. Leave to set and keep chilled. ( We made 5 mooncakes )

Cook’s Note:
1. Due to different sizes of the mooncake molds, shortage or wastage of jelly liquid is inevitable.
2. Scratch the surface with a wooden skewer or toothpick to make it rough for better adhesion between layers.
3. Experiment with the type of layering pattern you want. For example, we made a thinner white layer in the main photo, we only used around 1/6 of the total skin jelly liquid for white and 5/6 for strawberry. The strawberry red color becomes light pink instead of dark pink shown in the steps’ photos.

Reference book: Fashionable Jelly Mooncakes 时尚燕菜月饼, By Wong Sip Moi 黄雪梅, Y3K cookbook, ISBN 978-983-43531-9-3

Conversion:
For your convenience, please use this unit conversion, powered by UnitConversion.org to convert the measurement to other units.

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Clik here to view.Making the jelly egg yolks, refer to step 1 & 2 in the recipe method.
In order to avoid messiness and wastage, we would advise you to check on how much jelly liquid to fill if you are not sure about the amount. Fill the mold with plain water, cover the lid tray, press it down, excessive water will over-flow from the holes. Remove the lid tray and mark the level of water left inside, this will be the level that you should fill the jelly liquid to.

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Clik here to view.Making the White Filling, refer step 3 in the recipe method.
Screwpines leaves are optional.
Leave the pot in water to cool down the jelly liquid a little before start pouring, especially if the container is not high-heat safe.

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Clik here to view.Molding the Filling, refer step 4 in the recipe method.
Make sure that the filling height is at least 1/2″ – 3/4″ shorter and smaller than the jelly mold.
It is always easier to use a wooden skewer to pick-up the egg york and place it on the center of the filling mold/container.

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Clik here to view.After unmolding from the container, scratch the surface with a wooden skewer so that it can stick better in the mooncake.

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Clik here to view.Making the Skin, refer step 5 in the recipe method.
Again, leave the pot in water to cool down the jelly liquid a little before start pouring, especially if the container is not high-heat safe.

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Clik here to view.Layering the Skin, refer step 6 in the recipe method.
Scratch the surface with a wooden skewer or toothpick to make it rough for better adhesion between layers.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Experiment with the type of layering pattern you want for the strawberry jelly mooncake. For example, we made a thinner white layer in the main photo, we only used around 1/6 of the total skin jelly liquid for white and 5/6 for strawberry. The strawberry red color becomes light pink instead of dark pink shown in the steps’ photos.

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Clik here to view.