These wintermelon mooncakes are my homage to wintermelon tea. Wintermelon is not a super popular ingredient outside of Asia, as it is a relatively bland gourd that is caramelized and used as an ingredient for boba milk tea frequently. I grew up drinking wintermelon tea all the time, so I wanted to use that as a flavor for my mooncakes! The idea was to make this caramelized wintermelon almost jam meets paste, and pairing that with the rich mooncake pastry just sounded like a great time. But I did not want to just stop there. Normally mooncakes have a salted egg filling, meant to represent the full moon. But I wanted to use mochi instead. Usually, mooncakes are made with one of two kinds of wrappers. Either a larded or oily one, which is the case for this recipe, or a snow skin wrapper that is essentially mochi-based. I wanted to kind of have this two for one deal, but incorporating the mochi as a filling, so that you get some fun textures, but still that visual aesthetic of something full moon-esque in lieu of the salted egg yolk. Hilariously, I was already intending to make mooncakes this year, but I was contacted by my friend Christophe to make a mooncake recipe for Facebook Meta Prosper, so it was a recipe that was meant to be!

In terms of the technical aspects of this recipe, the wintermelon filling does take a bit of time to make. The wintermelon, being a fibrous fruit, requires a lot of processing first. I had to peel, de-seed, then grate the wintermelon into a fine pulp, just so that it could caramelize quickly. I also used palm sugar, because it has a pleasant earthiness to it, and that plays off of the earthiness of the wintermelon excellently. For my mochi filling, I used a combination of mochiko and shiratamako. Both of these are glutinous rice flours, but mochiko creates a softer-textured mochi, while shiratamako creates a bouncier textured one. By blending the two together, you get a mochi that can hold its shape in the baking process but still have a chewiness even after baking. With the dough itself, it is quite oily and dense. It makes the dough really easy to roll and shape, so perfectly ideal for putting through a mooncake paddle. I do own mooncake paddles, but using a mooncake press is perfectly fine too! I will say that these mooncakes were delightful to eat, not too bad to make outside of the wintermelon filling, and if you love caramel-like flavors, this is the mooncake recipe for you.

Makes 16 mooncakes:
For the wintermelon filling:
8oz wintermelon, peeled, seeded, and shredded
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tbsp canola oil
a pinch of salt
2oz palm sugar

In a bowl, toss the wintermelon with the cornstarch, oil, and salt. In a large nonstick pan, heat up the palm sugar until it begins to melt and turn brown. Add to the pan the wintermelon, stirring everything on low heat for 10-15 minutes, until the wintermelon is completely tender, reaches a dark brown color, and the consistency of the mixture reaches a gel-like thickness. Allow the wintermelon mixture to fully cool before attempting to use.

For the mochi dough:
2oz shiratamako
2oz mochiko
3oz water
a pinch of salt
cooking spray
2oz granulated sugar
potato or cornstarch

In a bowl, mix the shiratamako, mochiko, water, and salt together to form your mochi batter. Pour the batter into a microwave-safe container lined with cooking spray. Cover the container in cling wrap and using a knife, poke holes into the top of the cling wrap. Microwave the container for 2 minutes. Then heat up a nonstick pan with the sugar and the microwaved mochi batter to form your mochi dough. On a starch-lined tray, pour the mochi dough and allow it to cool before cutting it into 16 round pieces.

For the mooncake dough:
150g flour
85g golden syrup
1/2 tsp lye water
30g vegetable oil
1 egg yolk

Mix together everything minus the egg yolk to form your dough. For the mooncakes, take 30g of your dough and flatten it the best you can. Take 5g of the wintermelon filling and spread it in an even layer onto the dough. Place on top of that the mochi. Pull the dough around the mochi to fully encapsulate it, then roll it into a smooth ball. Generously oil mooncake paddles and press the balls into the paddles to shape the balls into mooncakes. Remove and place onto a lined sheet tray. Brush with egg yolk and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes to finish.

For the lye water, you can make it from scratch by boiling down 2 tbsp water with .1 grams of baking soda for 2 minutes. You don’t need a lot of lye water to make this recipe, but you can also purchase it at Asian supermarkets! You can also use lye water for things like pretzels!

For the golden syrup, you can make it by boiling down 3/4 cups of sugar with 1/2 cup water and a pinch of salt. Once the sugar is golden brown, take off heat and stir in 1 tsp lemon juice to finish. You can also sub out the syrup with honey!