Many years ago, I ever attended a mooncake workshop that taught how to make these Teochew styled flaky yam mooncakes. The method that was taught was using the deep fried way to make these mooncakes. I tried to do it thereafter when I was back home. I realised I really gotta used alot of cooking oil to deep fried the whole batch of it. Perhaps it was also the first time attempting these mooncakes, most of them actually “opened up” during the deep frying process and dirtied the oil which required replacement when I need to deep fried the 2nd batch and so forth. So it was far from ideal to attempt these mooncakes through deep frying at home.
And today, the sudden urge to make these mooncakes is back again somehow ! Especially when I gotten myself some huge taro from PurelyFresh earlier and they were still sitting in the fridge. What’s better than converting them to these flaky taro mooncakes in conjunction of the Mooncake Festival coming up. Well, I hope everyone still remember our Mid Autumn Festival falls on 27 Sept this year hor !! Hahaha…
I think most of us must be so busy following the elections and campaigns rallies that somehow the mooncake festival this year seem to have taken a step back. Usually by this time, the advertorials for mooncakes and mooncakes making would be pretty overwhelming, but for now all still seems rather lukewarm and lacking much feel and ambience of the festive.
So I decided to spruce up the festive mood abit by making these Taro Flaky Mooncakes ! Come on, even if it’s the elections fever, we all still need to eat right !! Freshly made, home baked and all natural ingredients ! As good as they can be !! And good things are just meant to be shared !!
Presenting these Teochew styled Yam Mooncakes in other words. And I was really amazed that this method is so much easier than the one I attempted at the workshop several years ago. All in all, it took me slightly more than 3 hours to generate 25 pieces of these. I still remembered the last round it took me the whole afternoon to attempt these and even then, I could only salvage a few presentable ones.
Happy Taro-yamming !!
Flaky Taro Mooncakes (Teochew Yam Mooncakes) 千层芋泥酥月饼
Ingredients
For the Flour Skin
- 200 g plain flour
- 30 g icing sugar
- 50 g shortening
- 110 ml water
- 1/2 tsp white vinegar
For the Oil Skin
- 190 g plain flour
- 110 g shortening
- Few drops of purple coloring if using
For the Yam Filling
- 8-10 shallots chopped
- 75 ml cooking oil
- 400 g taro/yam steamed and mashed finely
- 150 g sugar
- 20 g wheat starch
Instructions
- Fry shallots in the cooking oil till aromatic. Add in the mashed yam, sugar and wheat starch and stir fried till the mixture is thick and mashy. Turn off the flame and puree the mixture in a food processor till the texture is smooth.
- Divide the mixture into 30grams each and shape round. Set aside.
- Combine the ingredients for the flour skin in a mixer and mix till all are well combined. Remove the dough and further knead it by hand for another 5 minutes by hand on a floured tabletop till it is soft and pliable. Roll the dough into a square.
- Combine the ingredients for the oil skin in a mixer and mix till well combined. Remove the oil skin dough and further knead it by hand on a sparingly floured tabletop till it is not sticky anymore. Roll the oil skin into a square that is smaller than the flour skin and place it in the centre of the flour skin from Step 3.
- Enclose both ends of the flour skin dough together and cover the oil skin entirely. Rest for 20 minutes.
- Use a rolling pin to flatten all sides. Roll it into a swiss roll. Flatten the dough into a square, turn it 180 degrees and roll it into a swiss roll. Again, flatten the dough, turn it another 180 degrees and roll it into a swiss roll. Cut the swiss roll evenly into 25 pieces and wrap in the yam filling from Step 2. Seal the edge facing downwards.
- Place the yam mooncake from the previous step on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 25 minutes till cooked (skin colour should be more on the white side to very slight brownish).
