Mooncake Piggies

The Chinese mooncake (called yuè bing) is traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn festival. They are usually consumed as delicacies in family and friends gatherings while celebrating the festival.

Traditionally, the dough that is used to make the Chinese mooncakes is also baked into piglet shapes called "jue zai bang" in Cantonese. These mooncake piggies are commonly sold at Chinese bakeries as a chewy snack and they are individually packaged in miniature bright-colored plastic baskets to symbolize "pigs" being bound for sale. 

These are my homemade version of mooncake piggies... I was shocked initially seeing the recipe require to use a kind of syrup that has to be ideally made and stored more than 3 months before use! Then, I thought of replacing this syrup with store-bought golden syrup and was happy that this idea worked well for me. Nice to see that my piggies have a beautiful golden light-brown glow just like the traditional one sold in the stores.

 

Here's recipe from the book, Moonlit Mid-Autumn Festival by Choong Su Yin.
(with my modification in blue)

300g syrup* (I use store-bought golden syrup)
90g cooking oil
3 tsp alkaline water
400g flour (I use Hong Kong flour as recommended in the book)
3 slices ginger (I didn't add this)

egg wash: 1 egg yolk + 2 tbsp milk

*syrup consisting of 1 kg sugar, 500g water and 3 slices lemon, is cooked in low heat until thick and is ideally store more than 3 months before using. It can be kept up to 3-5 years without deterioration.

Put 3 slices of ginger into oil and deep-fry until ginger floats up. Discard ginger and leave oil to cool. (I didn't do this step)

Place syrup into blender (I use mixer with paddle attachment instead). Add alkaline water, then oil and mix until all are well-combined.

Add flour and continue to mix to form a soft dough. (Depending on consistency of syrup used, extra flour has to be added to form an easy-to-handle dough. The book says "You may add some flour if the dough is too sticky as the concentration of syrup is the main factor.")

Cover with cloth and set aside for 2 hr or more.

To make the piggies:

Divide the dough according to the size of the piggies that you want.

Shape the dough into piggie face and body and using a toothpick to draw the features on the piggies face.

Each full piggie cookies has:

- one round dough for its head
- two flat small pieces of dough for its ears
- one small and shorter cylinder-shaped dough for its nose
- two black sesame seeds for its eyes
- one slightly larger, elongated and rounded dough for its body
- four small cylinder-shaped dough for its legs
- one thin and long dough to be shaped into a spiral shape for its tail

Each piggie's face cookie has all except the body, legs and tail.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush piggies with egg wash and bake for 5-10 min.

Remove and brush with second layer of egg wash and bake again for 5-10 min until golden brown.

Note: Piggies will be crunchy when they are freshly baked and will become soft and chewy as they should be on the next day.

Happy Baking
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