Walnut moontart 核桃酥月饼

Whenever during the mid Autumn Festive season 中秋节, tonnes of different types of mooncakes would be displayed colourfully in confectioneries, push carts in shopping malls etc. From the traditional flavour to unique flavour ... assortment of mooncakes that made you wanna buy or try all. To 'lure' their sales, assorted mooncakes were cut into small pieces as samplings for customers. I remembered when my kids were very young (probably around 5 - 7 years old then), they loved to sample those snowskin mooncakes 'non-stop' ... So much so that it made mom felt 'paiseh' embarrassed if don't "close some deals" to buy some ... hee hee! When they knew mom had made the purchase, they happily moved on, knowing that they could eat those mooncakes as soon when we reached home.

For me, I'm not too fancy in mooncakes even when I was a young kid ... I don't really like the sweet lotus or tau sar paste filling. Sometimes I would just scrap out the filling and eat the crust ... LOL.

As an adult, I particularly like walnut moontarts. My first love for walnut moontart was many many years ago when I purchased those cutie moontarts from Harbour City Restaurant located at PSA Building. But this restaurant had closed some years ago. But I do see walnut moontarts made by other confectioneries. As usual, I would get some for family and as gifts for relatives during the 'gift exchange'.

I chance upon this recipe and decided to use it for my first attempt on baked mooncakes ... also my love walnut moontarts. Recipe adapted from Angel of cookbakelove

Walnut moontart 核桃酥月饼
Ingredients: (Yield 25pcs)
With my notes and modification made in blue as I've cut down the quantity to make 12 pcs.

Dough
220g butter (salted) (110g)
50g Crisco shortening (I replaced with margarine 25g) 
50g icing sugar (25g)
½ tsp vanilla essence/extract
½ tsp ammonium bicarbonate (I omitted)
1 egg (half egg)
360g plain flour (180g)
25g custard Powder (10g)
½ tsp baking soda

Walnut for decoration.
Used some chopped big chunks of Macadamia nuts & Walnut for decoration.
1 egg yolk + 1 tsp water for glazing

Fillings
1kg Lotus Paste (I used 360g pure lotus paste)
200-250g Walnut (toasted and chopped)
(I omitted as need to reserve the walnuts for other bakes).

Method:
1) Cream sugar, shortening, butter, vanilla essence and ammonium together until slightly white (slow speed first then change to high speed).

2) Gradually add in egg.

3) Lastly add in sifted flour, custard powder and sodium bicarbonate to knead into a dough (do not mix too long). Leave dough in fridge overnight or for a few days (cover with cling wrap).

4) Divide fillings into about 40g each, (30g) roll into round ball.

5) Take out dough from fridge and divide into portions of 30g each.

6) Wrap fillings into dough and decorate with walnut. Apply egg wash and bake at 160ºC for 10 mins. Take it out and leave it for about 10 mins and apply egg wash again. Bake for another 15 mins.

The aroma of the buttery and lotus paste fragrance dominated the kitchen when I opened the oven door to take out the baked moontarts.  Smell very nice and I couldn't wait to taste the freshly baked moontarts .... the buttery flaky crust is what I'm after.

Simply satisfied ... with a cup of hot Chinese tea ^-^. My big kids liked these moontarts too ! Yeah ! Mom's feeling great too !
Here's an early well wishes to all my blogger pals and family :

Happy & Blessed Mid Autumn Festive Season

祝您和家人, 中秋佳节愉快!

I'm submitting this post to Best Recipes for Everyone August 2014
Event Theme: Mooncake hosted by Fion of
Xuanhom's mom

And

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from the Domestic Goddess Wannabe