September 17, 2024

Chocolate Lava Mooncake 巧克力流心月餅

Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節
Oh chocolate, oh chocolate, how much do I love thee, let me count the ways...

So many ways amirite, fellow chocolate lovers?!  I love chocolate in everything, be it sweet or savory.  Nom, nom...can never get enough of that dark chocolately goodness...  So it was that this year for Mid Autumn Festival 中秋節 I decided that we needed some chocolate to celebrate the moon!

Thus was the birth of a new styled mooncake, a Chocolate Lava Mooncake 巧克力流心月餅, a concoction of moist chocolate flavored filling with a secret heart of molten chocolate ganache, all wrapped in a tender golden skin.  Wasn't too sure how it would turn out, with the lava center and all, but OMgosh it was fantastic.  We were tickled pink with this chocolatey mooncake!  And the center, it was all melty!  Yeah chocolate chocolate!!

Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節

Ohh, look at my chocolate ganache!!  ❤️❤️  So scrummy that it's hard not to eat most of it while you're making it.  And if you have leftover ganache you can make chocolate truffles!!! 

Because of the small amount of ganache we're making all the chocolate might not melt before the cream mixture cools down.  If so just set up a double boiler (large heatproof bowl set over a pan of just simmering water, the pan should not touch the water) and use that gentle heat to melt the rest of the chocolate.  


Note:  As you can see from the photos, my lava center didn't ooze that much (didn't want it too spill out), though it was totally melty and creamy.  In the recipe I've adjusted the cream/chocolate ratio so that the center should ooze more.



All is mixed with flour until a non sticky golden dough is formed.


Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節

To make the chocolate mooncake filling we just added cocoa powder to the white bean paste and mixed until combined.  Cocoa powder lends a deep chocolaty-ness to desserts that I love.  Have you ever tried making brownies with cocoa powder, omg so good!

Our final result?   A deeply chocolatey, smooth, just perfect chocolate filling for a mooncake! 

Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節
Mooncake skin dough, chocolate filling, chocolate ganache 'lava' center

With all our mooncake components made we can start the wrapping of the mooncake.  The chocolate ganache is weighed, rolled to balls and firming up in the freezer already.  Weigh out the mooncake skin dough and the chocolate filling into portions and roll to balls.

A note on the weights indicated in the recipe below for the 3 mooncake components.  These weights are adjusted through trial and error so that the final wrapped cake can fit exactly into the mooncake mold that I have.  You most likely have a different size mold, so you would have to do a similar trial and error for your first couple of mooncakes to get the correct weights for each component so that the end result fits to your particular mold.

Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節

The filling is placed on the rolled out mooncake skin dough.  The wrapping commences!

Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節

Here we introduce our mooncake wrapping cheat, which we've spoken of many times before.  This method evolved from frustration at our very early attempts at wrapping where we ended up with thick and uneven skins.  Ugh...nothing worse than to see an mooncake looking kinda ugly once you bite into it.  

With our amazing mooncake wrapping cheat you'll be able to achieve thin and mostly even mooncake skin all the way around your mooncake!  It starts with folding the skin up around the filling in folds as per the above photo.
Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節

Next you'll need a trusty pair of scissors to cut off the extra bits of dough that are not needed.  Be careful here, though, to not cut off too much.  For more detail please see our post on How to Wrap a Mooncake.  All details and tips there!

Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節

To the mold!  First flour the mold lightly with flour.  Use an old toothbrush, works wonderfully.  Then flour your mooncake as well.  Don't forget to flour, otherwise you'll end up having to dig your cake out of the mold!  

Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節

Drop the mooncake in with the smoothest skin side downward.  Press the cake firmly into the mold to make sure that the imprint of the pattern stands out clearly.  If your weight calculations are correct your mooncake should fill the mooncake mold exactly to the top.

To release the mooncake a couple of sharp raps of the mold on the table should get the mooncake to start sliding out.  Do keep an eye on the mooncake though.  I've accidentally smashed my share of mooncakes through not noticing that they had dropped already and then smooshing them with another sharp rap.  Oopsie!

Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節
Bunny lanterns at the park light up the night

Chocolate Lava Mooncake, chocolate, lava, mooncake, chinese, recipe, 巧克力,流心,月饼, mid autumn festival, 中秋節

Chocolate Lava Mooncake
巧克力流心月餅 
(24 mini mooncakes)  Prep:15 mins  Wrap time: 20 mins   Cook time: 15 mins

Ingredients:


     Tools:

    Chocolate ganache center:

    Filling

    Mooncake skin

Directions:

Prepare the chocolate ganache:  Finely chop the chocolate.  Place into a medium sized bowl.  Heat the cream in a small pot over low heat until just simmering.  Remove from heat, pour over the chocolate and let sit for 2 minutes.  Stir until chocolate is all melted and the mixture is smooth and glossy.  Let cool to room temp and then chill in the fridge until set.  

Weigh out ganache into 24 portions at 0.18oz/5g each and roll into balls.  Set balls onto a tray and place in the freezer while making the filling and skin.

Prepare the filling:  Make the white bean paste according to the recipe here.  Add the cocoa powder in and stir until evenly distributed.  Weigh the chocolate flavored white bean paste into 24 portions at 0.7oz/20g each and roll into balls.  Cover and chill in fridge while making the mooncake skin.

Prepare the mooncake skin:  Add flour, golden syrup, lard and lye water into a mixing bowl and mix until an oily, smooth, non sticky dough is formed.  If too dry add a bit more lard or oil.  If too wet add more flour, one tbsp at a time.  Weigh out the dough into 24 portions at 0.63oz/18g each and roll into balls.

Preheat:  Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

Wrap the mooncake:   Take one chocolate filling ball and press to form a 1 1/2 inch circle.  Place one chocolate ganache ball in center.  Wrap the chocolate filling up and around the ganache until a ball is formed.  Repeat until all filling balls with ganache centers are made.  Cover and place in fridge.

Lightly flour a working surface.  Take one mooncake skin dough ball and roll out to a 4 inch circle.  Place one filling ball centered on the skin.  Gather the dough up and around the filling, creating folds where there is extra skin.  Use scissors to cut off the extra skin.  Pinch the cut edges closed.  If there are bits of the filling not covered just use a bit of the cut off skin to patch.  This dough patches really well.

For more details of this method please see our How to Wrap a Mooncake post for tips and cheats on the perfect mooncake wrapping method.

Place the now wrapped mooncake into your palm and very gently squeeze, turn, squeeze, etc. until a nice round ball shape is formed.  Dust generously with flour all around.  

Press mooncake mold:  Lightly flour the mold.  (Use an old toothbrush.)  Drop wrapped and floured mooncake into mold.  Try to drop the side with more thickness of wrapper facing up.  Press firmly but gently so that the mooncake completely fills the mold.  Turn mold upside down and rap the end once or twice while holding a hand below to catch the mooncake as it falls out.  Repeat for all the mooncakes.

Place molded mooncakes onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet with an inch in between cakes.  Use a pastry brush to brush off any excess flour.

Bake the mooncake:  Bake for 10 mins.  While baking prepare the egg wash by mixing the egg yolk with 1 tsp water.  Remove mooncakes from oven at 10 min mark and brush egg wash over the tops and sides.  Make sure that the egg wash doesn't puddle in the patterns on top, as that would blur the pattern quite a bit.  Place back into the oven to bake another 5-10 mins (depends on mooncake size) or until the mooncakes are a golden yellow brown on top.

Let cool completely before putting into an airtight container for 2 days for a '上油 rest phase', that will soften the mooncake skin.  After the resting phase your chocolate-licious mooncakes are ready to eat.  Enjoy and happy moon gazing to all! 

Storage:  Keep in a covered container in the fridge for up to a week.

Google

0 comments:

Post a Comment