Gluten Free Mooncakes for the Harvest Moon

A mooncake is an East Asian pastry traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The festival celebrates the harvest and the moon. Most mooncakes consist of a thick, tender pastry skin enveloping a sweet, dense filling, and may contain one or more whole salted egg yolks in their center that symbolizes the full moon. Traditional fillings include lotus seed paste, sweet bean paste and mixed nuts in syrup. Mooncakes have a lovely design imprinted the on top. There are tons of different designs, but some traditional ones include: Chinese characters for “longevity” or “harmony”, the moon, the Chinese goddess of the Moon (Chang’e), flowers, vines, and rabbits. I came across a fascinating snippet that Chinese revolutionaries used mooncakes to send coded messages in the olden days– you had to cut the mooncake into quarters and rearrange it to decipher the words. Definitely storing that away for later!

Cantonese style mooncakes use a thick sugar syrup and lye water in the crust which give them their chewy yet tender crust. In the interest of not dealing with lye water, I have replaced that with baking soda. As the title imples, I have also made these gluten free. I tested a ton of different flour combinations, but settled on a simple one flour recipe for the best flavor and ability to hold the print. I also tested this recipe with maple syrup rather than golden syrup, and oddly enough it was the best dough at holding the imprint, but I didn’t love the maple flavor. I mean I love maple flavor, but it didn’t work for me here. I usually go very non-traditional with the fillings, they very much reflect both my American heritage and the produce that is ripe and available to me this time of year. I have made a salted peanut and honey filling that was one of my favorites, but my kids were not into it. You can use any dense not too wet filling you want. I frequently do an apple pie style filling, you just cook the moisture out of it first. This recipe is one of my favorites- pumpkin and apple moons. Rather than a salted egg yolk moon (which also was did not go over well with the kids…) I cut apple moons with a melon baller to get the same effect. I tested them cooked and raw, and belive it or not they tased best (and were easiest) to plop in raw. The pumpkin filling is closer to an empanada filling than pie- it needs to be much drier than a traditional pumping pie filling would be.

Gluten Free Mooncakes

You really do need a mooncake mold to make these, there are several different styles from the beautifully carved authentic wooden versions to silicone. I recommend the plunger style for the novice, they are super easy to use and do double duty with playdough when you aren’t using it. The one I have doesn’t seem to be in stock anymore, but something like this. There are tons of designs to choose from though so look around. The size of your mold is going to influence the quanity of mooncakes you can make from this recipe– the standard smaller size makes 8. The recipe is easy to double for a bigger mold or if you want to make more.

Ingredients:

• 100 grams sorghum flour
• 1/4 cup golden syrup (can sub maple syrup, see note above)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 TBS coconut oil (melted)
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• egg wash (optional)
• pumpkin filling (recipe follows)
• apple moons- raw apples cut with a a melon baller

Method:

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. Allow to sit, covered at room temperature for at least 15 minutes to hydrate. (I frequently let it go longer.)

Divide the dough into either pieces. One at a time, roll or flatten each piece between two sheets of parchment. It’s a pretty oily dough and easy to work with.

Put a dollop of filling in the center of your dough. Normal people would tell you to put just a small amount so it’s easier to close, but realistically I always try to cram in way more than is suitable. If you are using the apple moons, spoon on some filling first, then place the apple in the center and then top with more filling making sure the apple is encased.

Carefully fold up the dough around the filling. You are trying to make a ball of filling that is completely encased in dough. (If like me, you have put in way too much filling this is trickier than it sounds.) You can roll the whole thing to make sure the dough is smooth- ish. Don’t fuss too much about this step- the mold will fix most sins.

The first time you use the mold spray a little cooking spray in first, but go easy, it makes the pattern less crisp. I don’t do it again after the first time. Plop the ball into the mold and invert it onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Press down on the plunger while pressing the whole thing down and hold it for a few seconds. Now release the plunger and pull the mold straight up. Sometimes you have to gently ease the mooncake off the disc, but it is oily enough to come free pretty easily. repeat with the remaining pieces of dough leaving several inches between mooncakes.

Place the whole sheet in the fridge for several hours or overnight. The soft dough makes it easier to work with when you are forming the mooncakes but you want it completely chilled before it goes in the oven to keep the pattern. You can brush the tops with egg wash to get the traditional shiny look or leave them as is. (I routinely forget and it doesn’t impact the taste)

Preheat your oven to 350° F

Cook the mooncakes for 10-15 minutes until golden.

Pumpkin Filling

This recipe makes more than you need for the 8 mooncakes above, but I hate using half a can and its essentially pumpkin butter so it’s delicious in other applications too. Halve it if you don’t want extra. It’s very sweet and I keep meaning to reduce the sugar, but its so tasty I never do.

Ingredients:

• 2 TBS butter
• ¾ cup dark brown sugar 
• 15 oz pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves

Method:

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium high heat. Add the sugar and stir until it dissolves.

Add the pumpkin, vanilla and spices. Continue to cook over medium heat for another 10 minutes or until it looks thick and a little darker. The idea is to cook off as much moisture as you can.

Remove from heat. Allow to cool before filling.