Thousand Layer Mooncake (月饼, Yuèbǐng)

Yesterday, many Asian countries celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival or the Full Moon Festival. It is one of the biggest holiday celebrated in Asian communities and it falls on a full moon day. The premise of the celebration is similar to the American Thanksgiving holiday. It centers around family reunion, togetherness, and thanksgiving for the harvest.

When my immediate family moved to America, we left all of our extended family behind in Taiwan. Celebrations and holidays were small and simple but they were still memorable and fun. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, my mom, dad, sister and I would sit in our backyard admiring the moon. We would drink tea, crack and eat sunflower seeds and eat mooncake.

Like turkey is to Thanksgiving, eating mooncake is the quintessential tradition of celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival. It’s very common for friends and family to gift mooncake as a sign of their love and hope for prosperity. There are many different kinds of mooncakes. The thousand layer mooncake is our favorite kind. It has a creamy center and is wrapped in soft, flaky dough. These mooncakes comes in a variety of flavors. We chose to fill ours with custard.

We had a lot of fun deciding on the appearance of our mooncakes. Since the dough is white, it is like a blank canvas. We wanted a pop of color so we decided on making our mooncakes with rainbow swirls. We also made some Totoro mooncakes by infusing the dough with sesame powder.

To create the rainbow effect, wrap colored oil doughs inside the white water dough. Roll the dough, fill it and bake according to the recipe.

For Totoro we just added some sesame powder to the oil dough. We saved some water dough for his tummy and some oil dough to make his ears. Once assembled and baked, we used chocolate to complete the finishing touches.

Our family’s Mid-Autumn Festival tradition of sitting in the backyard enjoying each other’s company and eating mooncake still brings a smile to my face. I look forward to sharing this tradition with our little ones when they are older and can stay up later.

Thank you for following along with us on our cooking adventures.

Thousand Layer Mooncake

Mooncakes are not just food. They are a cultural tradition. Creamy sweet custard wrapped in a soft flaky dough, these mooncakes are the perfect things to share with family on a mid-autumn night.

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 30 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Chilling time 40 mins

Total Time 1 hr 30 mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine Chinese

Servings 16 mooncakes

Ingredients

  

Custard Filling

• 2 eggs
• 3 TBSP sugar add more if you prefer a sweeter custard
• 2 TBSP custard powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup pastry flour can substitute with a 2:1 ration of all purpose flour and cake flour
• 3 TBSP butter softened and cubed

Water Dough

• 1 cup flour
• 2 TBSP powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/4 cup water

Oil Dough

• 2/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 2 TBSP sesame powder *optional
• food coloring *optional

Instructions

 

For Custard Filling

• Beat eggs and sugar until pale and frothy
• Add in custard powder and mix until dissolved and there are no lumps
• Add in milk and sifted flour. Mix lightly until incorporated
• Add in butter
• Warm custard mixture over a pot of simmering water for 10 mins, stirring every 2 min. The mixture will come together into a soft dough
• Remove from heat and allow it to cool completely

For Dough

• For water dough , mix all the ingredients and knead into a dough. Don't knead too long, just until the ingredients are mixed nicely. Cover with cling wrap and leave it to rest for about 30 minutes
• For oil dough, mix all the ingredients and add sesame powder and food coloring (if desired). Mix and knead into a dough. Wrap with cling wrap and leave it to rest for 30 minutes
• Divide both dough into 8 equal dough balls
• Roll water dough into a flat round shape, then wrap the oil dough into it. Pinch it closed and shape it into a round ball. Repeat for all the dough balls
• Shape the round sphere dough into a rectangular shape, and roll it flat lengthwise as thin as possible. Do it gently and slowly to prevent it from tearing.
• Roll it up diagonally into a log.
• Roll out the log lengthwise a second time
• Roll up the long dough like a sleeping bag. Cut the dough in half using a very sharp knife. Do not use a sawing motion as it will smear the layers and colors
• Slightly flatten the dough using palm . Then FLIP IT OVER making sure that the CUT side is facing DOWN.
• Roll the dough into a flat circle
• Wrap the filling into the dough , gently pull the dough upwards and around the filling . (Use your thumb to gently apply pressure on the filling) Seal it once the filling is fully covered with the dough
• Bake mooncakes in a preheat oven at 325' F for about 20- 25 minutes.

Keyword mooncake, thousand layer mooncake, Totoro

For custard filling:

For the water dough:

For the oil dough:

Assembly: