Mooncakes (1): Cheese Mooncake

I was thinking these past 2 days which recipe to post next........ I have been baking for more than 10 years and therefore have too many recipes which I want to share.

I have finally decided on posting my favourite Cheese mooncake recipe as mooncakes have been on my mind since last week. A university classmate has just reminded me yesterday that the Mooncake festival is on 8 September this year so there's less than 3 weeks to go. If you haven't decided on whether to make your own mooncakes, better start thinking now :) The filling for this mooncake is ready made so you can get your favourite filling from any of the baking supplies shop. I visited Kwong Cheong Thye last Friday and was amazed by the varieties of ready made mooncake fillings available. My mum took almost 15 minutes before she decided on the Red Dated Longan Red Bean paste. Below is my haul from Kwong Cheong Thye. I am planning to make some snowskin mooncakes later this week.

Back to the Cheese mooncake...I took out the recipe from my recipe file and just realised that it's 10 years old. I took the class from Phoon Huat in 2004! Back then, there weren't so many different variaties of mooncake and it was quite a novelty. A number of my family and friends thought it would be rather cheesey and were reluctant to try. However the cheese powder added to the pastry only adds to the fragrance of this mooncake.

Cheese Mooncake

25g Parmesan Cheese powder
150g Plain Flour
1 Egg yolk
25g caster Sugar
8g full cream Milk Powder
1tbsp Water
125g salted Butter
1 egg yolk mixed with 2 tsp cooking oil/1 tsp maple syrup for egg wash
Additional cheese powder for sprinkle
Ready made filling of your choice

1. Pre-heat oven at 200 deg C.
2. Beat butter with caster sugar at high speed till fluffy.
3. Lower the speed of the beater and add in egg yolk, Parmesan cheese powder and beat well.
4. Sieve the plain flour and milk powder together. Add to the mixture and add in 1 tbsp of water.
5. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and rest the dough for 15 minutes.
6. Divide the dough into 20g balls and the filling into 40g balls.
7. Roll the dough into a thin wrap and wrap around the filling balls.
8. Put on a lined tray and brush each mooncake with the egg wash and sprinkle some cheese powder on top.
9. Bake at 200 deg C for 20 minutes till golden brown.

10. Cool and pack into boxes. You can pack them into pretty mini cupcake cases and put them into clear plastic boxes as gifts for family and friends.

Hope you would like this mooncake as much as I do. They are perfect with a cup of chinese tea. I love the pastry and used them for my CNY pineapple tarts too :)