Chocolate Lava Mooncake 巧克力流心月餅

Prepare the chocolate ganache: Finely chop the chocolate. Place into a medium sized bowl. Heat the cream in a small pot over low heat until just simmering. Remove from heat, pour over the chocolate and let sit for 2 minutes. Stir until chocolate is all melted and the mixture is smooth and glossy. Let cool to room temp and then chill in the fridge until set.

Weigh out ganache into 24 portions at 0.18oz/5g each and roll into balls. Set balls onto a tray and place in the freezer while making the filling and skin.

Prepare the filling: Make the white bean paste according to the recipe here. Add the cocoa powder in and stir until evenly distributed. Weigh the chocolate flavored white bean paste into 24 portions at 0.7oz/20g each and roll into balls. Cover and chill in fridge while making the mooncake skin.

Prepare the mooncake skin: Add flour, golden syrup, lard and lye water into a mixing bowl and mix until an oily, smooth, non sticky dough is formed. If too dry add a bit more lard or oil. If too wet add more flour, one tbsp at a time. Weigh out the dough into 24 portions at 0.63oz/18g each and roll into balls.

Preheat: Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

Wrap the mooncake: Take one chocolate filling ball and press to form a 1 1/2 inch circle. Place one chocolate ganache ball in center. Wrap the chocolate filling up and around the ganache until a ball is formed. Repeat until all filling balls with ganache centers are made. Cover and place in fridge.

Lightly flour a working surface. Take one mooncake skin dough ball and roll out to a 4 1/2 inch circle. Place one filling ball centered on the skin. Gather the dough up and around the filling, creating folds where there is extra skin. Use scissors to cut off the extra skin. Pinch the cut edges closed. If there are bits of the filling not covered just use a bit of the cut off skin to patch. This dough patches really well. For more details of this method please see our How to Wrap a Mooncake post for tips and cheats on the perfect mooncake wrapping method.

Place the now wrapped mooncake into your palm and very gently squeeze, turn, squeeze, etc. until a nice round ball shape is formed. Dust generously with flour all around.

Press mooncake mold: Lightly flour the mold. (Use an old toothbrush.) Drop wrapped and floured mooncake into mold. Try to drop the side with more thickness of wrapper facing up. Press firmly but gently so that the mooncake completely fills the mold. Turn mold upside down and rap the end once or twice while holding a hand below to catch the mooncake as it falls out. Repeat for all the mooncakes.

Place molded mooncakes onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet with an inch in between cakes. Use a pastry brush to brush off any excess flour.

Bake the mooncake: Bake for 10 mins. While baking prepare the egg wash by mixing the egg yolk with 1 tsp water. Remove mooncakes from oven at 10 min mark and brush egg wash over the tops and sides. Make sure that the egg wash doesn't puddle in the patterns on top, as that would blur the pattern quite a bit. Place back into the oven to bake another 5-10 mins (depends on mooncake size) or until the mooncakes are a golden yellow brown on top.

Let cool completely before putting into an airtight container for 2 days for a '上油 rest phase', that will soften the mooncake skin. After the resting phase your chocolate-licious mooncakes are ready to eat. Enjoy and happy moon gazing to all!

Storage: Keep in a covered container in the fridge for up to a week.