Sakura Snow Skin Cake Pop Mooncakes

My sakura snow skin cake pop mooncakes were an experimental success: combining a cake pop filling with a soft, delicately chewy rice cake outer layer.

Although I know mooncakes are an autumn food and sakura is a spring ingredients, I couldn't resist combining the two to make sakura mooncakes. I had a funky cookie mould that, although technically not quite right for mooncakes, I figured would work well enough to shape them. It was fiddly, but possible (which you can see in my YouTube video).

I've not seen anyone make cake pop mooncakes before either, which is a little surprising because anything that is squishy but firm enough to roll into a ball can be pressed into a mooncake mould. I'm glad I tried cake pop mooncakes because it turned out to be a very tasty combination.

You can also watch me make these on my YouTube channel:

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes 29 50g mooncakes.)

Ingredients for Sakura Cake:

115g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
115g caster sugar
2 eggs
115g self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp soluble sakura leaf powder
50ml milk
Pink food colouring (optional)

Ingredients for Sakura Buttercream:

75g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
150g icing sugar
1 tbsp soluble sakura leaf powder
50ml milk
Pink food colouring (optional)

Ingredients for Snow Skin Dough:

400ml warm water
1 tbsp soluble sakura leaf powder
Pink food colouring
300g koh fun (cooked rice flour)
300g icing sugar
100g vegetable shortening

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, and grease and line an 8" round baking tin with a little vegetable oil and nonstick baking paper.

2. To make the cake, cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until fluffy, beat in the eggs, and beat in the flour, salt and sakura powder. Then beat in the milk and food colouring.

3. Scoop the cake batter into your prepared pan, and bake for about 20–25 minutes, until golden and puffy, and the cake springs back when you poke it in the middle. Leave to cool completely.

4. To make the buttercream, beat the butter and icing sugar together, adding the icing sugar bit by bit to avoid the sugar going everywhere. Add the sakura powder about halfway through adding the icing sugar. Then beat in the milk and food colouring.

5. In a large bowl, crumble up the cake in your hands, and stir in the buttercream – swap to kneading with your hands so it forms a kind of dough. Then roll into 21g balls – there should be 29 in total with a little leftover (feel free to eat the leftover bit).

6. To make the snow skin dough, dissolve the sakura leaf powder in the water, stir in a few drops of pink food colouring and set aside. In a large bowl, add the icing sugar to the koh fun flour, along with the shortening. Stir in the pink sakura water, switching to your hands to knead into a smooth dough (you may want to use food safe gloves because it can get a little sticky).

7. Roll into 28g balls – you'll only need 29 to go with the cake pop balls, so you'll have some leftover.

8. Flatten out a ball of snow skin dough into a disc, pop a cake pop ball inside, and close up like a round dumpling. Repeat until you have 29 stuffed balls.

9. Place a stuffed ball into a 50g size mooncake mould, press and release. Repeat with all your balls, and then chill in the fridge for two hours to firm up a little before eating.

Enjoy, and have fun,