How to make Lotus Paste Moon Cake?

I went back home last weekend to try to share how to make mooncake. However, little did I know that my grandma has cooked the lotus seeds. Well, I still manage to take some pictures and let me explain step by step.

Firstly, the lotus seeds needed to be washed. The reason is to wash off the skin. This is a tedious work. Thank god, I have a super grandma who did the work. After the boiling, lotus seeds become soft and needed to dried up.

From there, the lotus seeds will needed to be cooked with oil and sugar paste/caramel (not sure here). The cooking process will be tough, too much oil, there will be oil on the base of the mooncake at the end of the day, too least oil, the paste will becomes dry.

After its cooked, it will becomes dough like below. Then mixed with "kuaci" (melon seed).

Home made lotus paste can determine how sweet you want. Well, we optioned lesser sugar and there are no preservatives added so home made mooncakes will spoil faster.

The paste then will be made to ball size and to be weigh. This process onwards, will be done by my super mom. Each lotus paste balls must weigh the same so the sizes will be same. Its very important for the next few steps.

The skins also will be weigh so the size of the mooncake will be maintained.

We use wood made molds. The white powder is flour. Once the skin wrapped the paste properly, it will be molded here.

Like the above. Its nicely fits as the dough and skin was weighed properly.

You can see different patterns as we have different molds. My mom has been making mooncake for at least 15 years. Even with such experience, human errors still happened.

Once everything on tray, the mooncake will be heated in the oven for a while before they were taken out again.

The reason is to apply the egg yolk.

See the color of the skin before and after applying the egg yolk?

All nicely painted!

After reheated again, the mooncakes are finally ready!

All put in nicely to paper boxes. Nowadays, a lot of boxes are available. Tell you one more secret, home made mooncakes are not just lesser sweet, but also non-sticky. Now, you understand why a mooncake is sold so expensive, work needed to be done is not easy!