What to do if the mooncake skin is hard

August 15th is the season for eating mooncakes. Many people like to make mooncakes by themselves. Mooncakes will taste better only when they are moderately soft and hard. If the mooncakes taste hard, it will often affect the taste. The reason why mooncakes taste hard is mainly because the mooncake skin is not well-prepared and tastes very bad. At this time, certain methods can be used to remedy it. Let us learn about it.

Why are mooncakes hard?

1. The mooncake skin is not well-formed and has become stringy.

2. The unreasonable process of invert sugar syrup preparation and the proportion of ingredients can easily cause the Cantonese mooncake crust to absorb oil slowly and become hard. When kneading the mooncake dough, first make a dough hole and then pour the mixed syrup and oil into the dough hole. Use a small amount of flour to mix the syrup evenly. When the syrup does not flow, use your palm to press the dough evenly. Press it and never knead it.

3. When preparing the dough, you should first mix the invert sugar syrup and lye water thoroughly , then add the raw oil and stir to emulsify, otherwise a "saponification" reaction will occur (referring to the mixing of alkali and oil to produce the reaction of higher fatty acids sodium and glycerol), which will cause the dough to become glutenous and oily, and the Cantonese mooncakes will be stiff after baking.

What to do if mooncake skin is hard

Can be steamed in a steamer. If you want to heat it in the microwave, you need to cover it with plastic wrap, otherwise it will become a little hard when it cools down and you can eat it.

Next time you make mooncakes, brush them with oil (special oil, which can also extend the shelf life) while they are still hot out of the oven. This way the mooncakes will become soft.

How to make invert sugar syrup

Currently, most pastry chefs use industrially produced invert sugar syrup to make Cantonese-style mooncakes. It is easy to operate and the quality of the cake after baking is excellent. If the pastry chef makes his own syrup to meet the industrial production standard of invert sugar syrup, he should pay attention to the following when making the syrup:

1. It is advisable to use a stainless steel pot as the heating container;

2. The ratio of sugar, water and acid is 100: (35~40): (0.08~0.12);

3. Sugar should be coarse white sugar; citric acid should be used as the conversion agent, usually added in an amount of 0.08% to 0.12%; or fresh fruit juice (such as pineapple juice, lemon juice, etc.) should be used, and added after the sugar solution is boiled, and the addition amount is 0.5%;

4. The temperature for syrup boiling is 115℃;

5. The prepared invert sugar syrup should be left for 15 days before use.