Mooncake is a delicacy of the Mid-Autumn festival. This recipe includes step-by-step instructions as well as a video to show you how to make traditional mooncakes from scratch without store-bought golden syrup or lye water.
The filling in this recipe is the Vietnamese traditional one with mixed nuts, candied fruits, and cooked meat. I will also include some notes on other fillings such as black sesame and mung bean so that you can easily adapt to your taste.
Why Making Mooncakes at Home
Mooncakes are often enjoyed during Mid-Autumn festival in some Asian countries such as Vietnam and China. Making mooncakes at home isn’t a quick task, and nowadays, commercially-made mooncakes are sold in many places with all kinds of flavors in the month leading up to the festival. So… why bother?
First of all, store-bought mooncakes are just too sweet for my taste. I also find them on the greasy side, and sometimes with an unpleasant smell that feels stale. Besides, it is getting harder and harder for me to find mooncakes with the exact flavors we grew up with, even in Vietnam.
Lastly, I believe preparing festive food at home is one of the best ways to enjoy the festival to the fullest. Whether it’s making bánh chưng (square green rice cakes) for Lunar New Year or bánh trung thu (mooncakes) for Mid-Autumn Festival, I always enjoy the excitement the process brings.
Why This Recipe
This is already our second year making mooncakes, so we have accumulated quite a bit of cooking notes and tips. Some quick google searches will tell you that making them requires golden syrup and lye water (kansui, nước tro tàu - an alkaline solution). They are not typical ingredients you can find in regular grocery stores. What I like about this mooncake recipe is it doesn’t use store-bought golden syrup or lye water.
The recipe for the mixed nuts filling has the authentic flavors that will remind many Viet people of their childhood. This Vietnamese mooncake is called “bánh nướng nhân thập cẩm“. The filling is sweet-savory with many different textures and aromas.
Fresh mooncakes with homemade filling smell wonderful with the right amount of sweetness. I made the video below to show you all the steps. Preparing the filling is from the beginning to the 2m46s mark. Preparing the dough, shaping and baking the cakes is from the 2m46s mark to the end of the video.
How to Make Mooncake Dough
As I’ve said earlier, mooncakes usually requires golden syrup and lye water. Together, they will make the dough moist, tender, and thin while still capable of being shaped into beautiful patterns. Besides, they also add a yellow color to the dough. So how to create mooncakes at home without lye water?
1. You can easily make golden syrup with just sugar, water and lemon using my homemade recipe here. Prepare the syrup at least a week before making the cakes. We find that “aged” golden syrup gives the cakes a richer color and more tenderness.
2. As for lye water, we replace it with a bit of baking soda. I would say that the commercially made mooncakes are still a little more tender, but I don’t feel like we are missing out too much without lye water.
3. An additional way to increase the cakes’ tenderness or softness is to use cake flour instead of all-purpose flour. We have tried both and like both.
How to Make Traditional Mooncake Filling
Let’s look at the filling for the most traditional Vietnamese mooncakes. It is made from six groups of ingredients. That sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Is it a must to use all of them? Some ingredients can be omitted or have substitutions.
1. Nuts and Seeds: I use pumpkin seeds or pepitas (hạt bí), watermelon seeds (hạt dưa), cashew (hạt điều), white sesame seeds (mè trắng).
You can use a combination of what you can find. I think pepitas, cashew and white sesame seeds are pretty easy to find these days. Sunflower seeds can also work.
2. Candied fruits: candied winter melon (mứt bí) and candied ginger (mứt gừng) are the traditional choices. They are probably only available at Asian grocery stores. Candied lotus seeds (mứt hạt sen) can also be used. These candied fruits are already sweet so there’s no need for additional sugar in the filling.
3. Salted egg yolk: this ingredient is optional. It helps to cut the sweetness and richness of the cakes but it’s fine to omit it.
I have a strong dislike for store-bought mooncakes with salted yolks because they have a strong unpleasant odor. For my handmade mooncakes, I rub the yolks with a little of wine and sesame oil before steaming them briefly. The difference in taste and smell is like day and night.
4. Cooked meat: traditional choices are lap cheong sausages (lạp sườn) and roasted chicken (gà quay). I also use pork floss (ruốc/chà bông).
Lap cheong sausage can be found at Asian grocery stores. The roasted chicken is optional, and just use roasted drumsticks with an Asian flavor that isn’t spicy like honey-soy sauce. Generally, you can use a combination, or use just one of the three cooked meat options I listed above, or leave out the meat if you want to keep the cakes vegetarian.
5. Flavorings and Seasonings: kaffir lime leaves, mandarin peel (or orange peel), Mei Kuei Lu wine (rượu Mai Quế Lộ) and soy sauce.
Kaffir lime leaves can usually be found at Asian grocery stores, either in the produce section or the freezer section. I use orange peel from navel oranges and it smells great. With Mei Kuei Lu wine, I’m not sure how hard it is to find. The best place to find it is Asian grocery stores. Traditional lap cheong is usually infused with Mei Kuei Lu. If you don’t have this wine, it is not the end of the world.
6. Other ingredients: oil and glutinous rice flour. I use a combination of neutral-flavored oil and a touch of toasted sesame oil. Traditional cakes also use small cubes of pork fat but I’m not a fan.
Don’t omit the oil or glutinous rice flour. The flour helps the filling stick together. The oil also helps with that. Moreover, after baking, the oil from the filling will gradually seep out into the dough and make the mooncake skin tender. Right after baking, the skin is still kinda dry and crumbly.
Other Mooncake Flavors
Other popular mooncake flavors in Vietnam are lotus seed, black sesame seed and mung bean. With these kinds of fillings, some general rules to follow are:
- Cook the beans or seeds first. It can be steaming lotus seeds or split mung beans, or toasting black sesame seeds. Then process in a food processor until smooth. Cook the filling on the stove over medium low heat to reduce water content while adding sugar.
- You still need to add some toasted glutinous rice flour and oil to the paste for the same reasons as with the mixed nuts filling. Do it while cooking the filling on the stove. Mung bean and lotus pastes go really well with coconut oil, but for black sesame paste, you should use toasted sesame oil.
Shaping the Cakes
To create beautiful patterns for the cakes, you will need mooncake molds. You can find them at Asian grocery stores or on Amazon. They come in different sizes with all kinds of patterns.
Personally, I prefer those of medium sized with deep patterns. If I make baked mooncakes (bánh nướng), I will use the molds for 100gram (about 3.5oz) cake. If I make snow skin mooncakes (bánh dẻo), I prefer the 75gram (about 2.5oz) ones.
It is quite easy to shape the cakes except for mixed nut filling. Fillings made from seed or bean paste are not hard so you usually don’t need to press too much. However, since mixed nut filling is solid, you may need strong hands for the task. I often leave it to my husband to press the cakes :).
Baking the Cakes
I prefer baking the cakes at medium temperature, from 165°C (330°F) to 185°C (365°F). The baking process includes two, or sometimes three phases with brushing the cakes with egg wash in-between the phases.
- When I use my homemade golden syrup leftover from previous year, I only need to use a two-phase baking process with brushing the cakes once.
- When I use homemade golden syrup made several weeks before, I use a three-phase baking process with brushing the cakes twice. It takes slightly longer and more egg wash for the cakes to turn golden compared to using previous year’s syrup.
Be patient while brushing the cakes. If too little egg wash is applied, the color will be on the light side. However, if you let too much excess egg wash get in the gaps, you may lose the beautiful patterns on the top of the cakes.
Some recipes require spraying the cakes with a thin layer of water before baking to prevent cracking. We’ve never done it and we have baked more than 10 batches of mooncakes and never had cracking. I wonder if using store-bought syrup and lye water can cause that?
Recommended Work Flow
If you don’t have extra helpers (like your spouse), I recommend making a small batch of small to medium-sized mooncakes. When it comes to mooncakes, I believe quality is more important than quantity. Even the process of making it is more important than quantity.
You can also make the filling the previous day, cool and refrigerate, and then prepare the dough and bake the cakes the next day. Let the cakes cool completely then store in a dry place and wait for 1-2 days before eating. I know it’s not easy to resist the temptation, but the cakes will look and taste better after 2-3 days.
I hope my post has empowered you to attempt making mooncakes in your home kitchen. A few years ago, I never thought this was something I would enjoy making. However, fresh mooncakes are so superior compared to store-bought ones that they are worth a try.
⭐️ I’d love to hear what you think about the dish, so please feel free to leave a comment and a rating if you have tried it. New recipes are added every week so let’s connect on Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram for the latest updates. You can find my collection of Vietnamese recipes here.