You may already know that it is Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (AKA Mooncake Festival) this Sunday (Sep 27th)! It is one of the biggest festival in China (just like Thanksgiving in US) and families come together to enjoy the good time of the year.

Of course, food always weigh a lot in all kinds of festivals, for Mid-Autumn Festival, moon cake is a MUST! There are a lot of kinds of mooncakes: Cantonese style, Ice skin style, Meat style etc. Today I'm gonna share the recipe of the beautiful and delicate Ice Skin Mooncake with Chinese Custard filling. It's definitely an edible artwork!

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In Chinese culture, roundness means completeness and togetherness. So the full moon and the mooncake both means the reunion for the whole family. It's not just a food, it's also a spiritual tool for people to express love and best wishes to their friends and relatives.

Step 1: Prepare the Ice Skin

You will need:

--Glutinous Rice Flour (The flour made of glutinous rice, aka sticky rice) 90g

--Rice Flour (the flour made of normal rice, not sticky) 70g

--Wheat Flour 140g

--Milk 320g

--Sugar 60g

--Corn Oil 50ml

For those different kinds of flour, you can get them all in Chinese or Asian grocery store!

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1. Mix the oil, milk and sugar, pour them into a mixing bowl.

2. Mix all the flour, and sift them into the mixing bowl as well.

3. Use a spatula to mix all the ingredients together until it's very smooth.

Step 2: Make the Ice Skin

4. Strain the mixture into a plate (or shallow bowl).

5. Steam the batter for about 15 min until it's fully cooked.

6. While it's still warm, knead the dough until it is smooth.

7. Wrap it with food wrap and it's ready to use as the ice skin.

If you want some additional color for different fillings, you can add color powder into the skin and knead them together.

Step 3: Prepare Chinese Custard Filling

For the filling, you will need:

--Egg 100g (About 2 eggs)

--Sugar 35g

--Milk 60g

--Heavy cream 40g

--Butter 30g

--All purpose flour 25g

--Wheat flour 25g

--Milk Powder 15g

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1. Beat the eggs with sugar in a mixing bowl.

2. Add milk and heavy cream into the eggs.

3. Combine the all purpose flour, wheat flour and milk powder, sift them all together into the mixing bowl.

4. Put the bowl on a pot with boiling water, use low heat and combine the ingredients together slowly.

Step 4: Make the Chinese Custard

5. Use a mixer to mix all the ingredients well, make sure there is no clumps.

6. Add butter into the mixture.

7. Use a spatula and continuously stir the mixture until it becomes very smooth and not sticky.

8. Cool the custard and it's ready to use.

Step 5: Wrap the Skin and the Custard

First you need to know the size of your mold. For me I'm using a 50g mooncake mold.

Divide the ice skin and the custard with a ratio of 3:2, for example, in my case I use 30g ice skin and 20g filling to make the mooncake.

Use the dough to wrap the filling and make it roughly round and even.

Step 6: Make Mooncakes!

If you have cooked flour, then you can ignore the first step. If not, you can definitely make it your own:

1. Heat the pan and pour some glutinous flour into the pan.

2. Stir the flour until it's fully cooked (light golden color).

3. Put some cooked flour into the mold, tap the mold on the counter to get rid of the excess.

4. Put the dough with the filling into the mold, press it on the counter and push it out.

5. Ice skin mooncakes taste best after you put it in the refrigerator for about 3-5 hours. You can store them airtight for about 2-3 days, but after that the ice skin will start to get hard so enjoy them before that!

Step 7: Share Your Love

To make the food is only one part of it, to share it makes it a true traditional Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival! It is a way to express your love and your wishes to your friends or relatives. So here I made both ice skin mooncakes and Cantonese style mooncakes, and packed them in a box with traditional Chinese pattern on it.

I gave some of these mooncakes to my friends, and they just love love love them. The last picture is from a friend of mine and she said she doesn't want to eat them cuz they are too pretty. She posted the picture on her social networks and gave a big thank to me.

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All the wishes, all the love, all the appreciations and the compliments from my friends make the mooncake and the festival complete.

Step 8: Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Last three pictures are from last year, we also made purple yam filling and red bean filling. You can also make Matcha flavored ice skin mooncake if you want to.

Just use your imagination! Hope you like the story and the recipe of this lovely Chinese dessert, and happy Mid-Autumn Festival! (If you like it, please vote for me in the Edible Art Contest please! Thanks a lot!)