Way Past Mooncake Season

... but oh well, who cares? The reason I'm making mooncakes now is because I didn't have the moulds to make them before. These moulds are ridiculously difficult to find here in BC. So difficult in fact, that I was planning on ordering some from China or through eBay... but thank goodness for Ming Wo!! Yup, I was browsing around the local mall because there was a sidewalk sale going on... funny thing is that I didn't even buy any sidewalk sale items. I perused the sale goods and then for the heck of it decided to enter the store. I didn't expect to find anything new (since I go into that store quite often) but to my surprise, sitting in a ceramic display bowl were about 6 of these beautiful Mooncake moulds. I was ready to buy them... no matter the price. Amazingly they were only $2.65 each! What a steal, considering it costs $5 online plus shipping and handling... what a rip! I bought the 2 designs and was on my way home to cook up some mooncakes.

I found my recipes from kuali.com, a great website for Malaysian cuisine. There were so many variations on mooncakes, it was hard for me to choose. I literally sat at the computer (trying to find the perfect mooncake recipe) for 2 hrs... kind of obsessive, but hey that's me! I settled on a chocolate-skin mooncake with durian flavoured bean filling.

Durian Flavoured Bean Filling

Ingredients

- 1 1/2 cups white beans (I used black-eyed pease), soaked for 3 hrs

- 2 tsp durian paste

- 1/4 cup sugar

- 1 tsp oil

Method:

1. Drain the beans and place in a pot of boiling water. Boil for 1-2 hrs, or until the beans are soft enough to mash.

2. Strain the beans and place in a wok, use a potato masher or fork to mash the beans into a paste. Add in the durian paste and sugar.

3. Add oil to the wok and fry the bean paste on medium heat for about 2 minutes.

4. Remove paste from wok and allow to cool. Once able to be handled, use filling as directed in mooncake recipe.

My youngest sister was turned off the mooncakes because of the durian, but my other sister found it tasty. My mom isn't particularly found of mooncake, but my dad liked them alot! Personally, I found these mooncakes okay, they weren't awesome (the best ones are with the egg yolk inside) but they weren't bad. I also had some left-over so I brought them to work. My co-workers were intrigued by the durian flavour... some liked it, and some didn't. I chose this recipe because I'd never had a chocolate mooncake before and was also craving some durian flavour. Durian has been freakishly expensive lately, but when it's on sale I will have to buy one... maybe two, who knows. Next time I might try an agar-agar mooncake or a ping-pie (snow-skin) moooncake.