Thursday September 16, 2010
Homemade Shanghai mooncakes to relish
By YEE XIANG YUN
[email protected]
JOHOR BARU: Dome-shaped Shanghai mooncake is the preference of 37-year-old Chew Hui Kun, who sells them at her coffee shop here. “The Shanghai mooncake has a more fluffy and biscuit-like skin. It is less sweet compared with traditional mooncakes,” she said.
Explaining her preparations for the mooncakes, Chew said she would use condensed milk, butter, sugar, flour and eggs. The salted egg yolk must be wrapped in lotus paste filling before it is rolled into the pastry, she added.
Hot favourites: Chew wrapping the egg yolk with the lotus paste filling at her coffee shop in Taman Desa Jaya, Johor.
“To prevent the mooncake skin from tasting too milky, I replaced milk powder with condensed milk.” Chew said her customers preferred her homemade mooncakes because there were no added preservatives. She picked up the skill of making mooncakes from her husband’s brother 13 years ago.
“My family and I were staying in Brunei then. We were able to sell thousands of boxes of mooncakes,” she said, adding that she now made fewer mooncakes due to stiff competition in the market. She said she would spend two hours each morning preparing and baking the mooncakes, which were then pac-ked into boxes of four and sold at her coffee shop.
“The mooncakes are baked in an oven for about 25-30 minutes. That is the tricky part, as we have to monitor the heat closely to prevent the skin from cracking too much,” she said. Chew said her mooncakes were sold at RM27 per box of four, or RM30 for those with egg yolk. Chew’s shop is located in Jalan Danau 3, Taman Desa Jaya, Johor Baru.
