Spiral Moon Cake - International Food Challenge #1

I love challenges and the best part of food challenges is to learn along with other fellow food bloggers like curious as like me, i have been participating since i started blogging with a couple of food challenges happening in this virtual world and one of the recent food challenge is this International Food Challenge , a monthly event started by two wonderful food bloggers. Seriously i love this Internation food challenge, its a wonderful platform to learn various cuisine which is not that much familiar for many of us. Thanks to  Sara and Shobana, the brain childs of this event for inviting me to this food challenge.

This month's challenge is Cantonese cuisine,well this cuisine is one of the main cuisine in China. Their basic cooking techniques include roasting,stir frying,sauting,deep-frying,braising,stewing and steaming. Since am living in China town here, i know how wonderful and quick this cuisine is. Have you ever tasted their cantonese fried rice with chicken,prawns and eggs together, my kid will go crazy for this rice. Am an ardent fan of their cuisine and i got an immense chance to make their spiral moon cake which is quite famous during Chinese new year.I have tasted this moon cake before few years and its was a mystery for me , seriously i wondered how this cake is prepared, but finally i able to make some moon cake at home through this challenge. The store bought moon cake and this homemade moon cake doesnt have that much difference apart from the mould the stored one goes for and they tastes much more delicious after a day.Yes its hard to stop just with one.

Recipe Source: House of Annie
Ingredients:
300grms Sweet potatoes (purple ones preferable)
1/4cup Milk powder
1tbsp Butter
1/2cup Sugar
1/2tsp Salt

 Boil sweet potatoes then peel and mash the sweet potatoes.

Add the remaining ingredients to the mashed potatoes and cook in a pan until it forms a paste.

Roll out into 10 balls. Put aside while making the pastry dough.

For the moon cake dough:
Water Dough (A)
1cup All-purpose flour
1tbsp Icing sugar
Pinch of salt
2tbsp Cold butter
5-6tbsp Water

Oil Dough (B)
3/4cup All-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1/4cup Oil
1/2tsp Pandan essence

For water dough:
Sift the flour,sugar and water.

Add in the cold butter into the flour mixture and mix it with ur fingers until the mixture ressembles as breadcrumbs.

Add in the water and to form a soft but not sticky dough,cover and keep aside for 20minutes.

If the dough is sticky add more flour to get the soft pliable dough.

For Oil Dough:
Sift the flour,salt.

Make a well in the centre of the flour and add in the oil and pandan essence.

Bring the flour from the sides and mix to form a softe coloured dough,dont overmix.

Cover and keep aside for 20 minutes.

Rolling the cake:
Divide both the dough into equal 10 balls.

Take one piece from the water dough, flatten it and wrap a piece of oil dough, pinch to seal the edges.

With the sealed side facing up roll it as a oval shape disc.

Roll up it to form as cylinder like shape, turn the cylinder towards u and roll again to for a long thin strip.

Roll it again as a cylinder and cut it in the middle to form two pieces.

With the cut side facing down,flatten the dough,making the edges slightly thinner than the centre.

Preheat the oven to 350F and line a baking sheet over a baking tray.

Now place the sweet potato filling, wrap it and pinch to seal and roll slightly as a round ball.

Place it to the lined baking tray and bake for 20-25minutes until the top turns slightly brown.

Tips:
I loved my filling much sweeter coz the outside cover will be very flaky and very less in sweet, if the filling is sweet the pastry will be well balanced.

The dough will get dry quickly, so work fast to roll them.

If you hard time in rolling the oil dough, dont hesitate to sprinkle some water and knead them as a dough.