If you are looking for a mooncake recipe without mold, this piggy mooncake is for you. This piggy mooncake recipe is indeed mooncake, but instead of shaping it with a mooncake press, you can just shape it into a lovely pig.

In the first year I left my home country, I missed it so badly when Mid-Autumn Festival came. However, I didn’t pack a mooncake press in my luggage, so it was impossible to make traditional mooncake. Luckily, I accidentally saw a video of piggy mooncake and found it so cool! Piggy mooncake is a type of mooncake without mold and looks like a cute, mini pig. It’s also very easy to make and has a totally the same flavor with traditional version. Moreover, its lovely shape absolutely attracts children. Making piggy mooncake at home can become an interesting activity in Mid-Autumn Festival for kids.

Ingredients for piggy mooncake recipe

In general, piggy mooncake recipe is the same with original mooncake. You will prepare two parts: the wrapper and the filling.

The filling

You are free to make either mixed nuts or bean paste filling. With mixed nuts filling, there are many required ingredients so it’s quite complicated. Therefore, for a mooncake recipe without mold, I would like to introduce bean paste filling. To make bean paste, you will need:

Beans: It can be mung bean, red bean, or black bean. I used mung bean because it allows me to mix with various flavor like matcha and cocoa.
Sugar: Usually the ratio between sugar and bean are 1:2 or less. I don’t like too sweet mooncake, so that’s enough for me; but if you have a sweet tooth, you can add more sugar and taste the paste on the go.
Coconut oil or other vegetable oil: A bit oil added to the paste makes it smoother and moister. Coconut oil is always my favorite thanks to its pleasant aroma. If you don’t have it, opt for sunflower oil, canola oil or peanut oil. Olive oil doesn’t seem to match with the smell of bean paste, so I don’t recommend it.

The wrapper

The dough to make mooncake’s wrapper is a combination between wheat flour, golden sugar syrup or honey, and egg yolk.

Wheat flour: As an “easy going” cake, you can use every kind of wheat flour at home from all-purpose flour or bread flour.

Golden sugar syrup: This is a special ingredient to create glow, brown color for the dough. You can also replace it with honey, but the color may differ. However, it’s different from caramel syrup

Egg yolk: The dough requires egg yolk only, so you must separate it from egg whites. Save the egg whites for later use.

How to make piggy mooncake

Step 1. Make mung bean paste

I made mung bean paste many times before, and the latest time was for making fresh mung bean cake. Boiling or steaming mung beans are all good, but I still prefer boiling to save time. Follow these steps:

To start, wash the mung beans and remove any bad ones. Then, soak them in water for 3-4 hours until they soak up the water. During this time, if possible, change the water a few times to remove some of the yellow color. You can also soak them overnight. Keep rinsing them until the water is clear.

Next, put the beans on medium heat and boil them until they get soft. To be sure they’re cooked enough, do a “squeezing test.” Squeeze a bean between your fingers; if it squishes easily, they’re done. Drain as much of the hot water as you can. Now, add sugar and vegetable oil to the cooked beans.

How long it takes to make the paste depends on your tools. If you have a blender, blend the mixture until it’s a paste. If it’s too wet, cook it on low heat and stir until it’s firm but smooth. You can also use a potato masher. If you have no tools, add 1/2 cup of water to the cooked beans and stir them on low heat until they stick together. It would take you 45 minutes to an hour to become a paste.

Beside mung bean paste filling, there are various options of filling for you to try with mung bean paste. Add 1 teaspoon of matcha powder to 150g (5.3 oz) mung bean paste to make green tea bean paste filling. If you are a fan of cocoa and chocolate, add a teaspoon of cocoa powder per 150g bean paste.

Usually, 100g peeled mung bean and got more than 300g mung bean paste, enough four 4 mooncakes.

Step 2. Making the dough

You should proceed step 2 at the same time with step 1 to save your time, because it’s quite simple.

For golden sugar syrup, to cook it, dissolve brown sugar and water following the ratio 1:1 and cook on low heat until the water evaporates 80%. That means 200g mixture of sugar and water turns to 120g golden sugar syrup. It takes you around 40-50 minutes. Avoid stirring one the sugar mixture starts to boil, just wait, and squeeze several drops of lemon juice at the end. It needs to rest in at least 2-3 days before use, so you should prepare it several days in advance. Otherwise, you can use honey instead.

Once you have your sugar syrup (or honey) ready, mix flour, sugar syrup/honey and egg yolk together. Mix until it turns to a unique, shiny brown block.

The exact amount I used was 115g (1/2 cup) flour, 20g (1 ½ tbsp) oil, 65g (nearly 4 tbsp) golden sugar syrup and 1 egg yolk. I got nearly 200g mooncake dough and divided into 4 for 4 mooncakes, 2 piggy mooncakes and 2 others mung bean mooncake.

Step 3. Shaping piggy mooncake

For homemade piggy mooncake, the weight of the dough should be equal to 2/3 of the filling. For example, each mooncake includes 75g filling and 50g wrapper.

Mung bean paste mooncake — Left: filling balls – Right: wrapper balls

Roll filling into balls, the weight depends on the size of piggy mooncakes you would like to make. For me, I made two filling balls of 75g. If you are a fan of salted egg yolks, you can add 1-2 cured salted egg yolks in each ball.

Apply similar step for the dough. Roll the dough into balls with the corresponding weight with the filling. Because I made filling balls of 75g, I divided the dough into wrapper balls of 50g.

Now, take a bit dough and shape them into small balls, then into ears, eyes, and nose of a pig.

It’s time to shape the piggy mooncake. Flatten a wrapper ball and lay a filling ball in the middle. Gently stretch and adjust the dough to cover all the filling ball.

Finally, attach nose, eyes and nose of the pig on the ball. Done!

Step 4. Baking piggy mooncake

Like traditional mooncake, piggy mooncake needs to be under 3-times baking process.

Before baking: Spray water over piggy mooncakes. Heat up the oven to 230^oC (446^oF).

First baking: Bake the mooncakes in 10 minutes. While waiting for the first baking round, prepare egg wash by mixing 1 egg yolk with tsp water.
Second baking: After the first 10 minutes, take the mooncakes out of the oven. Apply a thin coat of egg wash and wait until it dries. Then, spray water over cakes and return them to the oven for the second baking round. Bake them at 200^oC (400^oF) in 15 minutes.
Third baking: Once taking the mooncakes out from the second baking round, immediately spray water on the cake. Wait for 15 minutes until the cakes are dry, then brush the egg wash the 2^nd time. Continue to wait until the egg wash layer becomes dry, then return the mooncakes to the oven. Bake them at 200^oC (400^oF) in 15 minutes.

After 3 times baking, the cakes are done. Let your piggy mooncakes rest in a day so the wrappers can soften. Then your piggy mooncakes are ready for you to enjoy!

Piggy Mooncake Recipe

Yield: 4

Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

If you are looking for a mooncake recipe without mold, this piggy mooncake is for you. This piggy mooncake recipe is indeed mooncake; however, instead of shaping it in a mooncake press, you can just shape it into a lovely pig.

Ingredients

Filling

100g (1/2 cup or 3.5oz) peeled split mung bean
40g (3 1/4 tbsp) sugar
1 tbsp coconut/vegetable oil

Wrapper Dough

115g (1/2 cup) flour
20g (1 ½ tbsp) oil
65g (nearly 4 tbsp) golden sugar syrup or honey
1 egg yolk

Egg wash

1 egg yolk
1 tsp water

Addtional tools

Water sprayer
Cooling rack