Happy Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节快乐！)；紫地瓜酥饼 (Purple Sweet Potato Mooncakes)

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to one and all, young and old! 祝大家:花好月圆人团圆，寄去相思和祝愿，幸福快乐好梦圆！

Hope my well wishes are not too late. Have been so busy the whole day that I didn't get a chance to seat down to blog. I do hope everyone has a nice reunion with their love ones; ate a good amount of mid autumn treats and even get a chance to bring their kids to carry lanterns, heehee. :)

Today I managed to sneak a couple hours out to bake this delicious Purple Sweet Potato Mooncake; 紫地瓜酥饼. This recipe is adapted from Carol 自在生活's 地瓜麻糬酥餅. Instead of using yellow flesh sweet potatoes, I used purple ones in this recipe. I also omitted the mochi filling as well....but regretted a little because I think with mochi will be very yummy too. :)

I did make some slight modification to the dough recipe as well:

Ingredients for Purple Sweet Potato Mooncakes (紫地瓜酥饼): (makes about 8)

Purple Sweet Potato Filling:

300g peeled, steamed and mashed

30g confectioner's sugar

30g unsalted butter

While the mashed sweet potato is still warm from the steaming, add in the butter and sugar in. Mix till all incorporated. Set aside to cool before use.

Water dough:

90g plain flour

10g confectioner's sugar

30g ghee

40ml ice water

Mix everything together till it comes together to form a soft dough. Divide into 8 or 10 equal portions, cover and let rest till needed.

Oil Dough:

90g top flour

40g ghee

Mix everything together till it comes together to form a soft dough. Divide into 8 or 10 equal portions, cover and let rest till needed.

Assembly: (for pictorial guide, please refer to Carol's site for details)

• Wrap each oil dough portion inside a water dough portion and seal nicely. Repeat till all has been wrapped in.
• Then roll each round into a long flat oval. Roll it up like a swiss roll and again repeat for the rest of the doughs.
• Then roll each swiss roll into a long flat oval and again roll it up like a swiss roll. Repeat for all and set aside.
• Preheat oven to 175C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
• Weigh out 8 or 10 portions of 40g of sweet potato filling. Then taking a swiss rolled dough and roll it out into a round and wrap with a sweet potato filling in it, making sure it seals up nicely. Repeat till all is wrapped up.
• Brush all the mooncakes with egg wash and bake in the oven for 20 minutes till the mooncakes are golden brown. Once out of the oven, you can again give it another egg wash coat to make it more shiny.
• Let cool completely then store in air tight containers or freeze them up to a month. Just thaw to room temperature when want to consume.

I just love the flaky light & buttery outer crust with the soft creamy sweet potato filling inside. I ate one up once it cooled down with a nice cup of hot tea, heehee. :D I even added an addition layer of sweetened mashed yam / lotus paste to go with the purple sweet potato to give it more texture and flavor. The cakes were not overly sweet or heavy at all, just the perfect desert to enjoy right after dinner tonight. :) In fact, this delicious cakes should be made even if its not mid autumn, it's good anytime!

P.S.: If you are wondering why there's a rabbit on my mooncake. Well, if you know the story of嫦娥, you will know she has a rabbit with her on the moon. There are so many versions of the story as of why there's this rabbit with her, so I shan't go into much detail. :P But I just thought the idea of having a rabbit chop on the mooncake makes it even more festive, heehee. :D

I am submitting this post to this month's Aspiring Baker's #11 "Mid-Autumn Treats!" hosted by Happy Home Bakers.

Will sign off here, and will try to post up another mid autumn treat soon. Have a good one all!