Snow skin mooncakes, also called snow skin mooncakes or ice skin mooncakes, are a kind of classic Asian dessert usually savored during the Mid-Autumn Festival. These mooncakes stand apart from the usual baked ones because they have a soft, chewy outer layer instead of a baked wrapper. Additionally, they are more adaptable for crafting diverse shapes compared to traditional mooncakes, which are typically imprinted with basic patterns. With ingredients like sweet potato, glutinous rice flour, rice flour, milk… let’s learn how to make snow skin mooncakes and shape them into adorable kittens.

Distinguish between Mochi and Snow Skin Mooncake

I used to receive questions about the difference between Mochi and Snow Skin mooncake. Mochi and snow skin mooncake are both popular Asian desserts and are quite similar in appearance if we don’t use a mooncake press to shape snow skin mooncakes. However, they are distinct in terms of their cultural origins and the wrapper. Here’s how you can distinguish between the two:

The Wrapper:

Mochi: Mochi’s wrapper is made from glutinous rice flour, which gives them a chewy, dough-like texture. It is soft, chewy, and and stretchy because of the glutinous rice flour.
Snow Skin Mooncakes: Snow skin mooncakes are made from a mixture of glutinous rice flour (similar to mochi), rice flour, and a type of starch such as rice starch, corn starch, or wheat starch. This combination gives the skin a soft, slightly chewy texture, but it is not as sticky or stretchy as traditional mochi. Snow skin mooncakes are often known for their pastel-colored, translucent appearance.

Both types of wrappers are cooked by steaming and can be easily dyed using food colorings. I usually use natural food colorings such as beetroot juice (pink), matcha powder or pandan extract (green), curcumin powder (yellow), cocoa powder or cacao powder (brown), etc.

Cultural Origins:

Mochi: Mochi has its origin in Japanese cuisine but has become popular in other Asian countries, including China and Taiwan.
Snow Skin Mooncakes: Snow skin mooncakes are more closely associated with Chinese and Cantonese cuisine and are often enjoyed during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Appearance:

Mochi: Because the wrapper of mochi is very soft, chewy, and sticky, it’s quite hard to shape it into various forms. It may be round or rectangular in shape, and the outer layer is often plain or lightly dusted with flour to prevent it from being sticky.
Snow Skin Mooncake: The wrapper of snow skin mooncake is less chewy and sticky. It’s also a bit firmer, so you can easily shape it into flowers, kittens, or simply press a mooncake mold onto it.

In short, the main difference between mochi and snow skin mooncake is the wrappers. This leads to differences in texture, as well as appearance: mochi is usually round in shape, while snow skin mooncake offers opportunities to be creative in shaping and decorating.

Ingredients

You need to prepare the filling and the wrapper to make kitten snow skin mooncakes. For the filling, I made orange sweet potato paste. You can also try mung bean paste, lotus seed paste, and many other types of fillings. Orange sweet potato is naturally sweet, so you can reduce the amount of sugar intake in your dessert.

For the wrapper, let’s prepare rice flour, glutinous rice flour, cornstarch/wheat starch, sugar, vegetable oil, and milk. These are very typical ingredients that you can find in every Asian food store.

To form the kittens, you simply need a toothpick and a bit of skill. Let’s do it!

How to make Kitten Snow Skin Mooncake

Step 1. Making the filling

Making orange sweet potato paste is simple: boil the sweet potatoes, mash them, and cook on the stove with cooking oil and glutinous rice flour until thickened to get the paste. Detailed guide: Orange Sweet Potato Paste Recipe.
After that, roll the paste into fillings. Each filling usually weighs 50-75g. With sweet potato paste, you should use plastic wrap to roll the fillings because it’s quite sticky. Cover them with plastic wrap and set them aside.

Step 2. Making the wrapper

Indeed, you can proceed with step 2 in parallel with step 1 to save time.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Then, add oil and milk, and whisk until combined and there are no lumps left. The batter should be smooth and have an ivory-white color.

Boil water to prepare for steaming. When the water boils, place the bowl in the steamer and cover it with a plate to prevent water from dropping into the batter. Steam over medium heat.
After steaming for 15-20 minutes, remove the plate to check the dough. You can check with a toothpick: insert it into the center of the plate. If it comes out clean, the dough is cooked.
Use a spatula to spread the dough in the bowl for 2-3 minutes.
Once it cools down, remove it from the bowl and start kneading it on a silicone baking mat or a clean surface 2-3 times, then cover it with plastic wrap.

Step 3. Coloring the wrapper & prepare coating flour

Let’s add natural food coloring to the dough to shape more lovely kitten snow skin mooncakes. Dye the dough pink with beetroot juice. You can dye 50% of the dough pink and leave the remaining 50% white.

Knead the dough with natural food colorings for a few minutes to get an even, beautiful pink and green dough. Cover it with plastic wrap.
For coating flour: Roast 2 tbsp of glutinous rice flour on low heat for 5 minutes. Use it to prevent the mooncake from sticking.

Step 4. Shaping Kitten Snow Skin Mooncake

First, mix a bit of white and a bit of pink dough together in a creative way you like, as long as it weighs 1.5-1.7 times the weight of the filling. Flatten the dough to create a wrapper and place a filling ball in the middle.
Wrap the filling carefully so the wrapper can cover all the filling balls. Place the snow skin mooncake ball on a surface with the more beautiful side up. Roll it to get a round, beautiful ball.
Use your thumb and index finger to pull out a little dough, creating cat ears. Repeat this process to finish two small, cute ears.

Shape the nose and mouth of the cat: Take 2 tiny pieces of white dough and 1 tiny piece of pink dough, roll them into 3 separate tiny balls, and stick them together to make the kitten’s nose and mouth. Stick them on the lower half of your kitten’s face, in the middle (as shown in the image below). Then, add the eyes with 2 black sesame seeds. After that, brush the kitten with roasted glutinous rice flour. Don’t reverse the order of steps because it’s hard for you to stick the detail after brushing to prevent sticking.
Draw the kitten’s whiskers: Use a toothpick to gently press on the kitten’s face, on the left and right sides of the nose and mouth.

That’s it! Now you have edible, lovely small kittens on the plate. Additionally, you can refer to my flower snow skin mooncake recipe here.

Storing Kitten Snow Skin Mooncake

Normally, people can store commercial snow skin mooncakes at room temperature for 1-2 weeks. However, commercial mooncakes have higher hygiene and food safety requirements and may contain preservatives to prevent molds. For homemade snow skin mooncakes, I recommend keeping them in the fridge and consuming them within 1 week.

Kitten Snow Skin Mooncake

With sweet potato, glutinous rice flour, rice flour, milk…let's learn how to make snow skin mooncake and shape it into an adorable kitten.

5 from 2 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Asian

Keyword: kitten snow skin mooncake

Prep Time: 15

Cook Time: 1 30

Total Time: 1 45

Servings: mooncakes

Calories: 370kcal

Author: Keep Up Cooking

Equipment

Ingredients

Wrapper

50 g glutinous rice flour 1.76 oz
45 g rice flour 1.6 oz
30 g corn starch 1 oz
50 g sugar 1.76 oz
180 g milk 6.35 oz
20 g oil 0.7 oz

Sweet Potato Paste Filling

240 g boiled and peeled orange sweet potatoes 8.5 oz
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp glutinous rice flour optional

Instructions

Step 1. Making the filling

Making orange sweet potato is very simple: boil the sweet potatoes, mash them, and cook on stove with cooking oil and glutinous rice flour until thickened to get the paste. Detail guide: Orange Sweet Potato Paste Recipe.
After that, roll the paste into fillings. Each filling usually weights 50-75g. With sweet potato paste, you should use plastic wrap to roll the fillings because it’s quite soft and sticky. Cover them with plastic wrap and set aside.

Step 2. Making the wrapper

You can proceed step 2 in parallel with step 1 to save your time. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Then, add oil and milk in, and whisk them until combined and there is not any lump left. The batter should be smooth and has ivory white color.
Boil water to prepare for steaming. When the water boils, place the bowl in the steamer and cover it with a plate to prevent water from dropping into the batter. Steam on medium heat.
After steaming in 15-20 minutes, remove the plate to check the dough. You can check with a toothpick: insert a toothpick or skewer into the center of the plate. If it comes out clean, the dough is well cooked.
Use a spatula to spread the dough in its bowl for 2-3 minutes.
Once it cools down, remove it from the bowl and start to knead it on a silicone baking mat or a clean surface in 2-3 times, then cover it with plastic wrap.

Step 3. Coloring the wrapper & prepare coating flour

Add natural food coloring to the dough so that you can make more lovely kitten snow skin mooncakes. Dye the dough pink with beetroot juice. Dye 20% of the dough pink and let the rest 80% white.
Knead the dough with natural food colorings in a few minutes to get an even, beautiful pink dough. Cover them with plastic wrap.
For coating flour: Roast 2 tbsp of glutinous rice flour on low heat in 5 minutes. Use it to prevent the mooncake from sticking.

Step 4. Shaping Kitten Snow Skin Mooncake

First, mix a bit white and a bit pink dough together in a creative way you like, as long as it weights 1.5 times of the filling. Flatten the dough to get a wrapper.
Place a filling ball in the middle. Wrap the filling carefully so the wrapper can cover all the filling balls. Place the snow skin mooncake ball on a surface with more beautiful side up. Roll it to get a round beautiful ball.
Use your thumb and index finger to pull out a little dough, creating cat ear. Make it twice to finish 2 small, cute ears.
Shape the nose and mouth of the cat: Take 2 tiny pieces of white dough and 1 tiny piece of pink dough, roll them into 3 separate tiny balls and stick them together to make kitten’s nose and mouth. Stick them on lower half of your kitten’s face, in the middle (image below). Then, add the eyes by 2 black sesame seeds.
After that, brush the kitten with roasted glutinous rice flour.
Draw kitten’s whiskers: Use a toothpick to gently press on the kitten’s face, on the left and the right side of the nose and mouth.
Repeat until you finish all the doughs and fillings.
Other variations: Flower Snow Skin Mooncake

Notes

Feel free to create the pattern and the color of your kittens.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cake (140g) | Calories: 370kcal

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