. more mooncakes .

I attended a hands-on mooncake making yesterday at Marine Parade CC  by Koh Bee Yen. It is the mooncake making season this month allover Singapore! The Community Centres all around Singapore has many classes on mooncake making. Go and check it out at OnePA website before the classes ended. Many trainers offer mooncake making and the popular ones are quickly snapped out! 

It was a full attendance yesterday, and there are many things to be done. Some are demo-ed while some are hands-on. The class started at 10am - 1.30pm but since there are many cakes to be done, in the end the class overrun by almost half an hour I think. I left at 1.45pm since I got to rush to my Thai Cooking Class at Cairnhill CC! 

Nevertheless, I enjoyed (as always) hands-on classes as you get to make your own stuff that you are going to eat and bring home!

Here are the photos from the mooncake class yesterday.

Flaky Yam Cake - unbaked

Flaky Yam Cake - baked

Shanghai Walnut Mooncake - unbaked

Shanghai Walnut Mooncake - baked

Snow Skin Mooncake - Durian (yellow) and Coffee (pink)

Traditional Mooncake with Single Yolk - unbaked

Traditional Mooncake with Single Yolk - baked

Actually, there is also a demo of Ice Cream Mooncake, which I did not managed to take a picture since I've eaten it haha! Seems quite easy to make but rather time consuming (in and out the freezer). The trainer actually taught us how to make the ice cream, but I figured out it will be easier (and faster) to use store bought ice creams. Here's how you make Ice cream moon cake.

Ice Cream Mooncake (Chocolate coating)

You will need:

Plastic mooncake jelly moulds, like these (can get from Kitchen Capers)

Chocolate (White, Milk, Dark or even a combination!), melted

Homemade or store bought Ice cream

Oreo cookies, chocolate chips (optional)

Method:

• Freeze the mooncake jelly mould in the freezer for 5-10 minutes.
• Melt your preferred chocolate using microwave or double boiler (safer but slower method)
• Take out the mould from the freezer, pour in 1-2 tbsp of the melted chocolate. Coat all the sides of the mould (Shouldn't be too thin). Put back in the freezer for 3 minutes or till the chocolate hardens. 
• Pour in your ice cream of choice and extra fillings that you want, do not pour too full as you still need to pour in more chocolate to cover the bottom. Put back into the freezer, and let the ice cream harden again.
• Pour in some melted chocolate to cover the ice cream. Put back into the freezer for 5 minutes or till the chocolate hardens and it's done!
• Take out from the mould, and your chocolate ice cream mooncake is ready to be enjoyed by all (or just you!)

The process is quite tedious as you can see, and you must have some 'free' space in your freezer! (mine is always full). However, they do taste good! It's a good project to involve your kids too, just prepare extra chocolates just in case they can't stop licking the chocolates of their fingers or the bowl :D and do get them to wear apron as it can be quite messy as you are dealing with chocolates.

I can't reveal the recipes that I learned from the CC here, however, I found similar ones here ... go and have a try :)

Traditional Mooncake recipe from Bake King 

Pecan Mooncake recipe from Bake King (instead of walnut, pecan is used)

Pandan Snow Skin Mooncake from Bake King

Snowskin Durian Ice Cream Mooncake from Bake King (Durian lovers fave!!)

and I found this website which listed Very Good Mooncake Recipes online! Woohoo!

Happy Baking!

- Mooncake Workshop @ Phoon Huat -

Yesterday I attended a baking demo organised by Phoon Huat at their Sims Avenue branch. They have a baking demo as well as hands on baking workshop every day at 2 locations: Sims ave and Clementi. Those who are interested can check on their schedule at their website. Usually they will run the demo/workshop for a week so you can choose which day and timing that you prefer.

First time attending the baking demo, I was rather lost in the shop. By the way, the Phoon Huat here is big! You can find lots n lots of products! Other than the usual baking ingredients, they have a good range of Wilton decorating stuff since they also conduct the Wilton decorating class as well.

So, back to my baking demo class... I went to the cashier who directed me to another counter inside. Here I was asked for my name and asked to sign the paper for attendance and to note my voucher no. Oh, forgot to mention that the baking demo workshop costs $15 and they give you a $15 Phoon Huat voucher too! Of course usually you will probably spend more than that but better than nothing ;)

I was directed to a small coridor that leads to one of the kitchen at the end. I was early and I see some empty chairs upfront so I seated myself right in the middle. An auntie suddenly spoke to me that I cannot 'anyhow' sit, must sit according to my number. Then I realised all the red plastic chairs has numbers. I quickly apologised and go to my 'designated' seat which was actually written at the top corner of the recipe page (How would I know when nobody told me?) I was seated on 2nd row which wasn't too bad. However, the seatings were rather packed and as the seats were filled up.. I am stuck there.

The demo was pretty straight forward with chef Francis explaining the ingredients in both English and Mandarin. Then he started the demo. The class that I attended started at 2pm and ends at about 3.30pm. At the end of the class, everyone took a picture of the finished products and take a small slice each to try or take home.

Here are the photos of the mooncakes made yesterday.