Fresh Pandan Snowskin Mooncake

Pandan leaves - Pandanus amaryllifolius (aka vanilla leaves in UK) is a tropical plant in the Pandanus genus, which is widely used in Asean countries. In Malaysia, you can commonly find these leaves which includes in my home garden.

Pandan leaf is long, thin, narrow, and green. It is sold fresh, frozen, or dried. I still vividly remember I saw only frozen pandan leaves in Australia. The dried leaves are less fragrant than the fresh leaves. The leaves have to be bruised or boiled in order to release their flavor. The leaves have a roselike, almondy, and milky sweet, vanilla-like flavor.

Even Pandan leaves can be found easily in Malaysia, but a lot of bakeries outside or cake shop still using the artificial pandan extract and colouring for making all cakes and mooncakes. For me, I prefer to use the fresh pandan leaves for making all pastries, although the colour appears to be pale naturally. Today I make fresh pandan Snowkin mooncake!

Below is my Snowskin Mooncake recipe:
Ingredients
75g glutinous rice flour
90g powdered sugar
33g Crisco shortening
75g pandan water (100g water cooked with 5 stalks pandan leaves)
Red bean paste and white lotus paste

Method

1. Wash fresh pandan and boil it in water until fragrance is out. Set aside.
2. Sieve flour and powdered sugar together in a mixing bowl.
3. Add shortening and mix them untill you get crumb like texture.
4. Add pandan water, colouring, mix well until it forms a smooth dough.
5. Make the fillings into ball shapes each 120g.
6. Divide dough into small portion each 50g
7. Flatten dough to wrap up the fillings
8. Seal up dough to enclose filling completely
9. Shape it in the mooncake mold.
10. Refrigerate it minimum 3-4 hours before consume.

If you would like to learn this from my baking class, you may drop me an email at hanker@hankerie.com