Dubai Chocolate Mooncakes

These Dubai Chocolate Mooncakes are a unique, modern take on traditional mooncakes. They include a sweetened pistachio filling paired with a rich, decadent chocolate mooncake skin. It’s the perfect balance of sweet, salty, and bitter flavors. Get all my tips and tricks below on how to successfully replicate these beautiful pastries.

Ever since I started making traditional mooncakes 3 years ago, I look forward to this time of the year. I love making mooncakes, and more than that, I love giving them to my friends and family. Something about these small pastries is just magical. Every year I always try to come up with new flavors that I’ve never seen before, and I have to say these Dubai Chocolate Mooncakes are some of my favorite. Dubai chocolate is one of THE flavors of the year, so I knew I just had to make a mooncake inspired by it.

How I developed these Dubai Chocolate Mooncakes

I first started with my traditional mooncake recipe as a base, then tweaked the filling and skin to give this the “dubai chocolate” experience (similar to my approach to my matcha red bean mooncake). For the skin, I replaced the peanut oil with vegetable oil and added cocoa powder for the chocolate flavor. I had to experiment with this dough a few times before I got it just right – dry enough so it doesn’t stick to your fingers but moist enough the final pastry isn’t too dry.

For the filling, I adapted the pistachio kadaifi layer from my Dubai Chocolate Ice Cream recipe into a filling that worked for mooncakes. I upped the amount of pistachio butter I used so the filling would stick together better and then added some flour so it wouldn’t stick to your fingers when forming the mooncakes.

Some deets about key ingredients

• Cocoa powder – I used Guittard Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder for this recipe. I always use this cocoa powder for every recipe because it is the highest quality cocoa powder. Using high quality cocoa powder is important because it really does translate to the final flavor and texture of the dessert. This is especially true for desserts that rely only on cocoa powder for the chocolate flavor. In the past, I’ve used Hershey or some generic cocoa powder and the results are not the same. Yes Guittard is expensive but it’s definitely worth it.
• Pistachio butter – I use sweetened pistachio butter for this recipe. Every pistachio butter has different sugar content. The one I use has 14 grams of sugar for every 2 tbsp of the butter. I’ve tested this with unsweetened and sweetened pistachio butter and prefer the sweetened version. If you purchase unsweetened pistachio butter and want a sweeter filling, simply add sugar to make it sweeter. Taste the filling as you add the sugar to get it to the sweetness you like.

Making my Dubai Chocolate Mooncakes (with tips!)

For just the recipe, skip to the recipe card. These instructions include a ton of tips and tricks I came across during testing and failing. They’ll help you achieve consistent results!

Prepping the filling and mooncake skin

1. Melt 3 tbsp of unsalted butter over medium heat. Add 3 oz of the kataifi and toast until light brown.
   1. Tip #1: Work quickly and continually toss the kataifi as it will burn easily.
2. Once brown, turn off the heat. Add 7 oz of pistachio butter, 1 tbsp of tahini, and 1/4 tsp of salt. Mix until the kataifi is coated in the pistachio butter.
3. Lastly, add 1/4 cup of all purpose flour and mix until just combined. Pour the pistachio filling into a container and let it cool in the freezer for 45 minutes.
4. In a mixing bowl, combine 84 g of golden syrup, 25 g of vegetable oil, 7 g of lye water, 117 g of all purpose flour, and 7 g of cocoa powder. Mix until a brown dough forms. Cover and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Forming the mooncakes

1. Once the ingredients are cool, take out your ingredients. This should include the filling and the mooncake skin dough.
2. Using a scale, weigh out the ingredients for each mooncake. Place 30 grams of pistachio filling and 20 grams of the mooncake skin on the scale. Combined, they should weigh 50 grams.
3. After you have weighed out the ingredients for 1 mooncake, form the mooncake. Roll the pistachio filling into a ball. Then roll the mooncake dough between your hands to form a ball. Roll it out until it becomes a flat, 3.5 inch disc. I like to do this between 2 pieces of parchment paper to prevent the dough from sticking to the rolling pin.
   • Tip #2: After handling the filling, wipe off any excess kadaifi from your hands. In testing, they kept getting stuck in the skin. This is totally fine, but I like to see only chocolate on the outside. It’s a lot neater and prettier.
4. Place the pistachio ball in the center of the mooncake skin disc and enclose filling with the skin. The skin won’t completely enclose the filling, so you’ll need to gently press the outside of the ball to stretch the skin over it. The motion you want to make is similar to how you would put a rubber band onto a ball or a cylinder. You roll your fingers over the rubber band until it reaches the position you’re aiming for. Once you get skin around the filling, roll between your hands to form a smooth ball.
5. Repeat this process for every mooncake until you run out of filling or dough.

Stamping the pretty patterns on the mooncakes

1. Now it’s time to put them in the molds! Prepare a baking sheet by covering it with parchment paper. Make sure to have your molds ready.
2. Coat the mold with a light layer of flour. Shake out the excess. This will help the mooncake to release easily from the molds.
3. Place each mooncake into the molds and press down firmly onto the baking sheet. Next, lift the mooncake a little bit and push it out of the molds. Repeat this for every mooncake. Make sure to brush off excess flour from the tops of the mooncakes.
   1. Tip #3: For the best results, press the mooncake mold down for 10 seconds to get the design accurately stamped into the mooncake.
   2. Tip #4: If the mooncake sticks a little to the mooncake mold, gently pull it out from the mold. It should release. In testing, I did have to gently pull it out from the mold, so if it sticks a bit, it is totally expected! This will tend to happen more as the mooncake skin warms up.
4. Let the mooncakes cool in the fridge for 10-20 minutes. I like to cool mine for an hour. The purpose of this step is to make sure the pattern on top holds in the oven.Baking the mooncakes

Baking the mooncakes

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C).
2. Bake the mooncakes for 5 minutes.
3. Make the egg wash by combining 1 egg yolk and 3 tbsp of whole milk. Whisk until smooth.
4. Take the mooncakes out and brush them lightly on top with the egg wash.
   • Tip #5: This coating should be VERY light. A heavy dose of egg wash will distort the pattern.
5. Put them back in the oven and bake for another 7 minutes.
6. Cool them for 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then on a cooling rack to cool completely.
7. For the best results, put them in the fridge to rest for 24 hours before eating.

Filling to skin ratio

The filling to skin ratio I use is 30g of filling to 20g of skin. For a 100g mooncake, I use 60g of filling to 40g of skin. For a 75g mold, I would use 45g of filling to 30g of skin. It’s important to know this ratio so you can play with the amount of fillings you use. Remember, always use a kitchen scale for consistent results!

Storing these Dubai Chocolate Mooncakes

The unique thing about these mooncakes is the storage. Typically, traditional mooncakes become softer as they sit in the fridge. However, these will harden if you put them in the fridge. I suspect this is because of the cocoa powder I put into the dough. So what should you do? I would store these in the fridge for up to a week. And when you take them out, let them sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before enjoying them. As they warm up, the skin will soften to the desired texture.

Did you make these mooncakes?

If you made this dish, I would love to see!

Follow Cooking Therapy on Instagram, snap a photo, and tag and hashtag it with @cooking__therapy and #beccascookingtherapy.

Stay connected and follow along on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram for all my latest recipes.

Disclaimer: If you purchase anything through a link on this site, I may receive a small commission from the purchase at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products that I would personally use. Thank you so much for the support!