Mooncake Making Workshop for Adults 2011 - A Charity Workshop

Years back, I had put up some chocolate gifts items and donated part of the proceeds to the Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund. I had always wanted to do a similar personal project again but it just didn't materialise.
This year, having conducted a volunteer workshop for the Little Arts Academy (LAA) children's workshop, I decided to partnership with them and do some fund raising for their Business Times Budding Artists Fund.

What motivated me in doing this? In my years of academic and professional training, I had been very blessed in receiving one bursary and two scholarship sponsorships. Though the total sum was not huge, they were significant in that I wouldn't have otherwise received the kind of education and experience I have now.

LAA's mission is: "To provide a creative learning environment and a broad-based arts curriculum where all children can discover their artistic potential and develop skills and personal values that will enable them to transcend personal, social and financial circumstances". This fund sponsors arts training for underprivileged children at LAA.

As it was just a few days back that I had the children's workshop at LAA, I had very little time for planning. J at LAA, however, was very fast to put the details on LAA's website http://www.thelittleartsacademy.com/category/partners/ and had also sorted the administrative details for me. I am very grateful to her and also to the Academy for helping me with this cause.

Above is my own effort in publicity and I hope there is enough participants to help raise a reasonable amount for the whole effort. To register, please email: enquirieslaa@toph.com.sg or call 6513 3013.

Friends, if you are reading this, my heartfelt gratitude to you for lending your support in signing up for the workshop or in helping to pass on the massage to any of your friends who might be keen.

Mooncakes

I love all the different kind of  mooncakes. However, I am fussy about their taste. They can't be too sweet, too oily, too dry nor have artificial taste. Hence, ever since I was taught how to make them while in culinary school, I never stopped trying different recipes and am constantly making adjustments, to the way I feel is right.

After 3 years, I am proud to say I am pretty good with most of them, except for the traditional baked ones. Despite numerous attempts, no matter what amount of oil and liquid I try to adjust for the skin and paste, their ratio just don't work out right. This inadvertently affects the final appearance and shape of the product, making the imprinted designs appear somewhat blur and the mooncake shapes distorted :( Need more attempt on this one for sure.

As it is way too tedious and tricky to cook my own lotus paste, I bough a particular brand originated from Hong Kong, which is not too sweet and oily. Most of the other ingredients are made from scratch while colourings and flavous are from fruit purees, natural pandan juice and instant coffee powder. I've also made my own yam paste for the teochew mooncake, under the guidance of my chef.



Mooncake biscuits, children really love them and if the syrup is cooked right, both the syrup and biscuits can be kept for a year, without preservatives... I ate my last piece 8 months later! The most common shapes are piglets and I love these cute goldfishes as well.



I made this to be served as complimentary dessert at the restaurant during the festival. The brown ones are chendol with pandan center while the yellow ones are mango with chocolate. Getting the agar balls to sit perfectly in the centre on the mould's little ridge takes effort and seems impossible if the moulds have been used repetitively .



Snowskin mooncakes, a huge improvement from last attempt and I think I will stick with this recipe. Mocha skin with Valrhona chocolate pearls lotus filling; strawberry skin with macadamia nuts lotus filling; original skin with sesame seeds lotus filling.



Traditional baked mooncakes, which I still need to improve their look although they taste wonderful.



Fried crispy skin teochew style mooncake with yam paste filling. I had the privilege to learn this from a Chinese head chef during my school attachment. It's a lot of work and involves many steps. Am not confident if I can still make it as nice looking as above.