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Make Chinese Mooncakes

If you’d like to make your own Chinese Mooncakes to celebrate Harvest Moon Festival, try this simple recipe from Shanghai, which can be made with ingredients that are relatively easy to find. Mooncakes are traditionally made using carved wooden molds with intricate patterns, but you can simply shape the dough into circles about 3 inches or 7 centimeters in diameter, and experiment with ‘drawing’ your own patterns on the circles before adding the filling.

This recipe makes about 15 cakes. You’ll need:

For the dough: 4 cups flour, 4 tbsp brown sugar, a pinch of salt, 4 oz margarine, 1 egg, 1 tsp sesame oil.

For the filling: 2 tbsp peanuts, 2 tbsp sesame seeds, 2 tbsp walnuts or pine nuts, 2 tbsp chestnuts, boiled until tender, or blanched almonds, 2 tbsp sultanas or other dried fruit, chopped, 2 tbsp chopped dried apricots, 4 tbsp brown sugar, 2 tbsp margarine, 2 tbsp rice flour or poppy seeds.

Preheat oven to 400F or 200C.

Make the dough:

1. Sift the flout, sugar and salt together.
2. Chop the margarine into pieces and rub into the flour until crumbs form.
3. Add enough hot water (about half a cup) to make a pastry dough. Cover with a cloth and set aside.

Make the filling:

1. Roast the peanuts in a hot pan for two minutes. Add the sesame seeds, then cover the pot with a lid on to stop them from jumping out of the pan. Roast for a further two minutes.
2. Put the peanuts and seeds in a food processor or blender and grind with the other nuts.
3. Add to the rest of the filling ingredients and mix together.

Make the Mooncakes:

1. Roll out the pastry on a floured board.
2. If you have a mold, cut rounds with a pastry cutter to fill it. Rub the mold with margarine and spread pastry over the bottom and sides of the mold.
3. If you don’t have a mold, just use a cookie cutter to make little circles to fill.
4. Put in a tablespoon of filling. Press down gently.
5. Wet the edges of the pastry and cover with another round to make a lid. Seal together, and remove from the mold if you are using one.
6. Put all the cakes on a greased baking sheet.
7. Beat the egg and sesame oil together and brush each cake with this mixture.
8. Bake about 30 minutes, until the cakes are golden brown.

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