Bánh trung thu are various types of Vietnamese mooncakes enjoyed during the Mid-Autumn Festival every year. These delicious treats come in two styles: savory baked, bánh nướng, and sweet snow skin, bánh dẻo. Participate in the annual tradition and learn how to make your own mooncakes that you can share with friends and family.
The Mid-Autumn Festival
Vietnamese mooncakes, also known as bánh trung thu (mid-autumn cake), come in two forms: bánh trung thu dẻo (snowskin mooncake) and bánh trung thu nướng (baked mooncakes). You’ll find these mooncakes aplenty during Tết Trung Thu, known as the Mid-Autumn Festival or Children’s Day, typically in August. Families spend time making them together and gifting them to friends and family to celebrate a fruitful harvest season. Mooncakes are best served with a cup of hot tea to balance the sweet and savory treats.
Types of Vietnamese mooncakes
While these mooncakes originated from China, Vietnamese mooncakes differ in ingredients and flavors, like adding dried meat and salted eggs. Both varieties are composed of an outer crust and filling.
Bánh trung thu nướng (baked mooncakes) has a crust made from wheat flour, syrup, and oil and is baked in the oven after filling and molding. The golden brown hue is also due to a light coating of egg wash during baking.
Bánh trung thu dẻo has a soft and chewy crust made from sticky (or glutinous) rice flour and often filled with sweet pastes, like lotus paste. Unlike the Chinese version, this dough doesn’t require cooking since we use roasted glutinous rice flour which is already cooked. After filling and molding, bánh dẻo is eaten fresh and doesn’t require additional cooking.
Snow skin mooncake ingredients (outer shell)
Bánh dẻo (snow skin mooncakes) are made with cooked glutinous rice flour, simple syrup, and flavoring, like pomelo flower extract. We followed this traditional recipe by using a specific rice flour which is roasted before it’s processed and ground into a fine powder. This type of cooked rice flour is called bột nếp chín (or roasted glutinous rice flour). You can find this on Amazon or your local Vietnamese grocery store. Using roasted rice flour means you don’t need to cook the dough before or after molding the mooncakes.
Traditionally, Vietnamese mooncakes are very sweet, but we personally prefer less sweet desserts. We opted to make a simple syrup with a 1:2 ratio of sugar and water. If you like sweeter mooncakes, you can use a higher sugar ratio.
Snow skin mooncake filling ingredients
Mooncakes can be both sweet and savory. Snow skin mooncakes often contain sweet ingredients like lotus, mung bean, or red bean paste. Savory fillings are found in baked mooncakes and include various nuts, dried meat, herbs, and spices. In recent trends, we’ve eaten lava mooncakes that have a filling that oozes out when you cut into the mooncake, like salted egg lava mooncakes or chocolate.
You can add savory fillings if you prefer to the snow skin mooncakes. However, it can be difficult to form because the fresh and delicate filling isn’t as structured as the baked mooncake crust. You can make your own filling or buy pre-made filling at the grocery store. For this recipe, we used premade red bean paste filling from 99 Ranch to help streamline the process. We’ve also used the premade lotus taro paste filling and it was also tasty.
When we have extra time, we also make homemade lotus filling. If you make your filling at home, prep one day ahead and put it in the fridge until assembly. We found that chilling the homemade paste allows it to set to a better consistency for molding.
Mooncake molds
Traditionally, you will see bánh trung thu in square or round shapes with intricate designs on the top. Often, you will see square-shaped mooncakes specifically for bánh nướng (baked mooncakes) and round-shaped mooncakes for bánh dẻo (snow skin mooncakes).
Mid-autumn festival is a time to celebrate the fruitful harvest for the year under a full moon and has ties to the fertility of the land, so it’s no wonder that mooncake molds are thought to represent the earth (square molds) and moon (round molds). The intricate designs were also passed down from Chinese travelers, and you’ll even find many molds with Chinese astrological symbols, such as dragons or tigers. These days, mooncake molds come in various shapes, like carps and rabbits.
Mooncake molds come in different materials and varieties of presses. From traditional wooden molds to plastic presses, there are endless options. We prefer using a plastic press where you can change out the design because it’s less effort to shape the mooncakes. For snow skin mooncakes with a traditionally sweet bean paste filling, we opted for a 75-gram-sized round mold with interchangeable design plates.
Tips for rolling & pressing mooncakes
Rolling out the dough and forming it into mooncakes can be pretty tricky, but we’ve come up with a few tips to help you along the way:
1. After making this recipe multiple times, we’ve found that the amount of rice flour you add in while kneading can change depending on the warmth of the syrup. It’s best to keep track of the dough’s texture to make sure when to stop adding flour and kneading. We stop kneading once the dough takes a smooth texture and rounded shape that doesn’t flatten when you’re kneading.
2. Use silicone baking sheets to prevent dough from sticking to the cutting board or counter. You can also wear gloves while kneading and forming the mooncakes to prevent sticky fingers.
3. Weigh out the dough and filling into balls to make uniform-sized mooncakes. We like the 30 grams of dough to 25 grams of filling ratio.
4. When flattening out the dough into a circle, use your fingers to enlarge the edges while keeping the center slightly thicker. This technique is similar to folding xiao long bao, where the edges connect and form a ball. Thin edges ensures you won’t have uneven thickness on the closed seam.
5. Place the filled dough ball on the silicone sheet, press it into shape, and sprinkle more rice flour on top to prevent the mooncake from sticking to the mold.
6. If your first press isn’t the best, don’t fret! You can always reroll the dough gently into another ball and repress it with the mold.
Prepping ingredients ahead & storing mooncakes
The only ingredient we recommend making ahead of time for snowskin mooncakes is the filling. We prefer making the pastes (whether it’s lotus or sweet bean) at least one day ahead and chilling it until assembly because it produces a denser texture. We wouldn’t recommend making the dough ahead of time because it can dry out and crack.
Once you’ve made the mooncakes, you can keep them in a sealed container in the fridge for 2-3 days. We recommend eating them within 24 hours for the best texture and flavor. Before eating chilled mooncakes, I let them come to room temperature on the counter.
How to serve mooncakes
Mooncakes are best served with a pot of hot tea to help balance out the sweetness of the bánh dẻo (snowskin mooncake) and the savory flavors of bánh nướng (baked mooncakes). Jasmine green tea is a crowd favorite in our house. We love sharing mooncakes with friends and family because they can be so sweet to finish off all in one sitting by yourself.
Snowskin Mooncake / Bánh Trung Thu Dẻo
Ingredients
- 170 g (6 tbsp) water
- 37.5 g (3 tbsp) white cane sugar
- 100 g (15 tbsp) cooked glutinous rice flour plus more for rolling and assembly
- 1 drop pomelo flower extract optional
- 250 g filling of your choice
Equipment Used
- weighted scale, or measuring cups and spoons
- saucepot
- spatula
- mixing bowl
- hand towel
- nonstick silicone baking sheets
- disposable gloves optional
- small mooncake molds we used a 75-gram sized mold
Instructions
Simple syrup
- In a saucepot over medium heat, combine the 170 g water and 37.5 g white cane sugar . Stir to help the sugar dissolve. Once it starts to bowl, remove the pot from the heat and let it sit until slightly cool to the touch.
Mooncake dough
- In a large mixing bowl, pour the simple syrup and gradually add the 100 g cooked glutinous rice flour to combine. Option to add in 1 drop pomelo flower extract if you prefer.
- Continue to mix until all the flour is incorporated. The dough should feel slightly tacky and soft. Cover with a hand towel and let the dough rest for 15 minutes.
- Sprinkle flour on a cutting board, place the dough in the center, and sprinkle more flour on top of the dough.
- Knead the dough by taking the heel of your hand and pushing the dough in an upward motion. Partially fold the top half over the center, rotate the dough 45°F, and repeat. Sprinkle more rice flour on the dough as necessary.
- Knead the dough with your hands until the dough has a smooth surface and is able to hold its shape. It will still be slightly sticky.NOTE: We added about 62 grams (or 2.2 oz) of extra rice flour during kneading. Our ball of dough weighed in at 310 grams total (this can change depending on how much rice flour you end up kneading into the dough).
Assembling mooncakes
- Use a weighted scale to measure the dough and 250 g filling of your choice. For one 75-gram mooncake mold, we prefer the ratio of 30 grams of dough to 25 grams of filling. This should make 6-10 small mooncakes depending on the weight of your dough.TIP: Once you separate the portions of dough and filling, place them on silicone baking sheets to prevent them from sticking on any surface. Place a hand towel over them to prevent them from drying out.
- Flour your hands and roll the dough into a ball. Make sure to dust your hands with flour throughout this process. Your hands should not be sticking to the dough. You can also use food-safe gloves.
- Flatten the ball onto the board or your palm.
- Use your pointer fingers and thumbs to gently enlarge the circle, focusing on pressing the edges.
- Roll the paste into a dough and flatten slightly into a disk. The slightly flattened shape will make it easier to wrap.
- Place filling onto the center of the flattened dough circle.
- With your pointer finger and thumb on your dominant hand, make a circle. Place the skin and filling over the circle.
- Use your fingers to gently wrap the dough skin over the ball of filling.
- Make sure to remove all the air bubbles and wrap it completely.
- Gently pinch the top so the dough closes over the ball and sticks to itself. Place the ball of dough in your palms and gently roll to reinforce the ball shape.
- Sprinkle the ball with some flour, focusing on the top of the ball that the mold is going to impress.
- Flour the molds and remove excess by turning it upside down and gently tapping.
- Place the ball on the cutting board, seam-side down. Place the mold above and firmly and evenly press for a few seconds. Remove the mold from the mooncake.
- Gently brush off the excess flour on top.
- You can serve them immediately or let the snow skin mooncakes rest on the counter, uncovered for 1-hour to get a slightly firm texture.