Rachel: Rachel Makes a Moon-cake

Autumn.

I don't think I have every truly expressed how much I enjoy this season. In whatever hemisphere or country I live in, by whatever name she is known, I've yet to see a side of Autumn I dislike. In the Southern Hemisphere, Autumn marks the end of the long summer that was inevitably way too hot and dry for a supposed rainy season. In the beginning, the beach weather is perfect -- you can actually sit outside without sunscreen for at least an hour before you will burn. Sometimes if you're lucky there are some fantastic storms out on the downs that bring some incredible lightning displays and no matter the weather or where you are, the evening sky is often a brilliant shade of emerald green turning to blue (ok this is all based on the fact I've grown up in sunny Queensland, BUT I can vouch for Byron Bay being like this to some degree too). You can still wear summer clothes during the day and then change to a light jacket and jeans at night. AND my birthday is in April (although the older I get, I'm not so excited about that!).

In the Northern Hemipshere, Autumn (or Fall rather) has so much colour! My favourite colour is red (good thing I live in China!) but I especially enjoy the warm Autumn colours (probably cause I can't wear them without them making my skin look like I have Hep C): browns, shades of coffee and chocolate, warm rustic reds and golden oranges and yellows. And baby avocado green. Maple and Oak leaves on the ground, apples and deep, red pomegranates, harvest parties at the local community garden and farms. Oh and PUMPKINS! Ok so I grew up hating pumpkins but was thoroughly intrigued by the concept of Jack-O-Lanterns. In Australia, pumpkins are rock hard. You could kill someone if you threw one at them. So I couldn't imagine how Americans could do this pumpkin carving thing. When I got to California and Fall rolled around, I begged Jason to take me to a pumpkin patch and show me how this carving was done...and now I'm totally addicted. What can I say, small things amuse small minds -- last year, I even grew my own pumpkins, brought home a gourd from the shop every time I went, AND went to a pumpkin patch. Now I'm thinking how I could grow a jack-o-lantern vine on my balcony for next year. So sadly, there'll be no pumpkins this year I guess BUT there will be...

MOON CAKES!

Well, there was already moon cakes -- I'm a little late in getting this post up here. But in my defense we just had two holidays/festivals in three days plus moving apartments again. Its a busy time of year.

So I'm going to write more about the actual holiday in the next post because it will make this one entirely too long and if you're even still reading by now after all my sentimental blubbing, I do commend you. For now, I just want to share the experience of actually getting to make my very own moon cake!

So the other day I come home and Jason says, hey you're friends are going to some lady's house to make bread if you wanna go. So I think sure, good bread is ridiculously hard to come by here and since my bread maker recently kicked the bucket, I can use all the help I can get. Then my friend messages me to ask me to bring my camera and I think, why? It's only bread...but she doesn't message back so I grab my camera and off I go to supposedly make bread. So upon arriving, I discover that Jason's missed most of the details and we aren't making bread at all, we are in fact making yùe bǐng or Moon Cakes. And it costs money for which I didn't bring enough cause I didn't know it cost money (if you ever have a baby, make sure you tell me the details ok?). Anyway, my friend fortunately had enough to spot me and I was so busy taking photos that the teacher practically made my whole moon cake for me anyway, but it was so much fun and I completely documented the whole thing so I can make them myself next time. Then the kitchen people wanted copies of the photos which they announced they would be putting on the wall because we're the first foreigners they've ever taught to make moon-cakes.

Look out Better Homes and Gardens...

Recipe for Yùe Bǐng (Chinese Traditional Moon Cakes)

Measure EXACTLY.

Sift together 100g bread flour and 100g of cake flour in one bowl.

Whisk together 400g of corn syrup and 8g of this special water that I can't find the English translation name for. The characters that she wrote down for me look kind of like this: 枧水

(which seems to translate as soap water but I really hope that's not what it is...)

Add 150g of peanut oil. As the wet ingredients mix, they will start to get thicker and become a

richer colour.

Add dry ingredients to wet and knead into dough. Let rest for 20 - 30 minutes

While the dough is resting, prepare your filling. Now we didn't make our own filling from scratch

but you can feel free to experiment at this stage and use anything from mango jam to spicy beef (yuk). You usually choose two flavours: 40g of the first which you roll into a ball and 55g of the second which you flatten till you can cover the first ball evenly. I choose to use the traditional moon cake filling 蓮蓉 lián róng (lotus paste) and 绿茶 lǜ chá (green tea). That's my green ball in the above picture.