Chendol Agar Agar Mooncake: UPDATED

I know that Mid Autumn Festival 2009 is already over. But I still think I should blog about it as a few readers were interested in mooncake making in last year's posts. This year, due to Raya, I did not bother with varieties. In fact I did not manage to cook any paste like last year and I did not give away that many mooncakes too. This year Nee is a lazy bum.

So 3 days before the actual day, Jo and I just simply decided to get together and we did our Windmill Cakes and Traditional Teochew Mooncakes and we also managed this agar agar one, which everyone loves because it is such a deviation from the traditional baked and snowskin ones too. Honestly, I can eat the whole piece by myself. And you really don't need to have a high level of skill to do this. Even Greg can do this ... Uhm, on second thoughts I take that back. I think Greg is beyond sub-zero level when it comes to anything near cooking or baking. Eating yes, cooking no.

This recipes makes 4 big ones and about 8 smaller ones.

Filling:

350gm coconut milk squeezed from 1/2 kg of fresh coconut with 1/3 cup of water
300gm of chendol
100gm of gula melaka, chopped finely
25 gm of castor sugar
2 tsp of agar agar powder, I normally used Rose Brand
1/2 tsp of salt

1) Stir the chopped gula melaka with the coconut milk till gula melaka almost dissolves.
2) In a pot, place agar agar powder, salt, sugar and mix evenly. Pour in coconut milk into gula melaka mixture. Bring mixture to almost boil.
3) Add chendol and stir to loosen them. Bring to a boil and place mixture in a container that can help minimise wastage. The filling should be made first and chilled until set.
Cut the filling according to your plastic mooncake moulds. The height and width should be about 2/3 of your moulds.


The skin (White Mixture):

250gm of castor sugar
950gm of water
1/2 cup of evaporated milk
5 tsp of agar agar powder

4) In a pot mix sugar with agar agar powder. Add water and bring to almost boil.
5) Add evaporated milk and bring to boil.
6) Pour white mixture to just cover the bottom of mould. Wait till almost set. Meanwhile keep rest of mixture warm over small fire and stir occasionally.
7) Once almost set, place the cut filling into the moulds. Fill up with rest ofthe white mixture and chill to complete set before serving.