Mooncakes come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, but the traditional flavors are pretty obvious to anyone who’s been to a Chinese bakery: you’ll most commonly see lotus, red bean, black sesame, and five seeds. If you’re lucky, those will also contain a salted egg yolk inside.
But more contemporary flavors are popping up, especially when it comes to snow skin mooncakes, which feature a chewy rice flour-based exterior reminiscent of mochi. It’s not uncommon to see flavors like matcha, taro, ube, and more.
One thing I don’t love about snow skin mooncakes (but for some reason doesn’t bother me as much with traditional mooncakes) is the monotonous texture. The exterior is soft and the interior is…also soft, so you don’t get a lot of textural contrast. When I was brainstorming ways to include a crunchy element, I somehow landed on crispy peanut butter. I threw these together and they were a huge hit, especially with the people at the mooncake workshops I host. They’re a favorite amongst not just mooncake first-timers (who unsurprisingly love them) but even some of the picky aunties & uncles that have shown up.
The best part of this recipe compared to other snow skin fillings (which often require a soaking and steaming step) is that you can make this filling super quickly. You can have peanut butter mooncakes in less than an hour start-to-finish (if you want).
This recipe is best paired with my snow skin wrapper recipe.
Crispy Peanut Butter Mooncake Filling (For Snow Skin Mooncakes)
Ingredients
- 10 g crispy rice cereal like Rice Krispies or similar
- 35 g powdered sugar
- 100 g creamy peanut butter see notes
- 25 g coconut flour
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract optional
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Add rice cereal to a medium sized bowl. With clean hands, crush the cereal by grabbing and squeezing it (this is also incidentally very therapeutic). You want the cereal to remain fairly coarse (about the size of very coarse sand), but it doesn't need to be perfectly uniform. When in doubt, err towards keeping the pieces a bit larger rather than going too small.10 g crispy rice cereal
- Add the powdered sugar, peanut butter, and vanilla extract (if using). Mix well with a spatula.35 g powdered sugar, 100 g creamy peanut butter, 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- Add the coconut flour and mix until uniform — the dough will be quite stiff and should peel away from the sides of the bowl/not be very sticky. If the dough still sticks to the bowl or your hands, add additional coconut flour 1 tsp at a time until you achieve the correct texture. You can also add additional salt to taste, though I find the dough to be sufficiently salty from the peanut butter.25 g coconut flour
- Roughly shape into a block and seal tightly in plastic wrap.
- Store in the refrigerator until ready to use, up to about 3 days. After that, the dough will still be edible but you may notice a decline in the crispiness of the cereal.
Notes
- I strongly prefer "non-natural" varieties of peanut butter for this recipe, like Jif, Skippy, or similar. If you'd like to use an organic variety of peanut butter, try opting for a thicker no-stir variety. If using organic, you may also need to add additional sugar.