I made total 4 mooncakes this year, each weights 170 grams. One of them broke after I took it off from the wooden mold. I had to throw it away.
 
So, these three are the only ones successed. There was lots of efforts had put in to make these mooncakes...
 
Made my own salty egg yolks, the process took total one and half month.
 
The special syrup which took me one and half hour to complete.
 
The lotus seed paste made from dried lotus seeds took me 4 hours to complete.
 
The dough wrap was the easiest part, took one hour.
 
The ratio of dough wrap to the filling is 2:8 which means 34 grams dough wraps 111 grams filling plus two egg yolks.
 
But all the efforts was worth for when Alan and I enjoyed those golden brown, rich and tender goodies the day after.

 
                
Clockwise: inside look, the homemade syrup, the wooden mooncake mold.
 
P.S. for a party a month later, I also made a patch of Shanghai style mooncakes, they were delicious and desired as well.

                    
Alan and I made 21 of Suzhou-style meat filling Mooncakes today. The achievements brought the greatest feeling of enjoyment into our hearts. It was the first time I truely felt the happiniess from cooking. The feeling was so real, it floated in our kitchen like clouds, I could almost touch it and form it in shapes.
 
I haven't had this type mooncakes since I left Shanghai, China. It's so amazing that we successfully made them at home.
 
It's a fortune to have a guy like Alan who is good at cooking, so he and I are able to work together as a team , to have all the surprise and enjoyment from trying out different recipes.
 

  A close up look inside.

                    
I bought several wooden carved cake molds from a girl in China last year. But I didn't make anything untill now. Alan and I made our first Dragon and Phoenix mooncake from the largest Mooncake mold we bought. The whole cake weights 500g which is about 1.1 lb. The filling weights for 400g about 0.8 lb.

We only made one Dragon and Phoenix cake, the one you see here. (we made several small ones also, as you will find one in the last picture I posted here)

                    
Red bean paste is my favorite sweet paste in mooncakes. I made my own paste this time, soaked red beans in water for over night, simmered on the stove for 2 hours, sit for several hours. then filtered in cheese cloth to get the finest red bean paste. Slowly stir fried filtered red bean paste with oil and sugar till they are well mixed. Oh my... now I think of the efforts, I would say I was nuts.

                      
This is the picture before we baked the cake. Cellphone was there for compare the size of it.

This mooncake is not a perfect looking one, but Alan and I are still glad we made it.