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The moon cake is a special kind of sweet cake and typically is round or rectangular pastries, symbolizing the full round moon of the mid-autumn festival. They are usually made with four egg yolks from salted duck eggs, representing the four phases of the moon, and are sweet, filled with sweet bean or lotus seed paste. Moon cake is much more rich and dense compare with western cakes, thus usually Chinese prefer eaten in small wedges and with Chinese tea. The top of the moon cake usually is filling with golden brown flaky skin and embossed with the insignia of the baker molded. Making moon cakes is labor intensive and delicacy; many families just pick up from reputable bakeries. Thus, the baker's insignia is very important.
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Traditional Moon Cake
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Traditional make moon cake always enveloping with thin tender skin, fill with sweet bean or lotus seed, one or more whole salted egg yolks and prepare in baked. It is sweet and slightly oily. However saltiness of the yolk balances well with the sweet filling in the moon cake. The topping of the moon cake always imprint with Chinese character "longevity" or "harmony" or the name if the bakery. Other imprint like moon, lady on moon, flowers vines and rabbit may found surround the moon cake for decoration purpose.
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Moon cake filling
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Threw are a few popular traditional moon cake filing, such as:
Lotus seed paste (蓮蓉).
Lotus seed paste is a Chinese dessert ingredient made from dried lotus seed. It is considered as an original flavor moon cake filling, it is commonly found in all type of moon cake. Some time white kidney bean paste is used as a replacement for filler, because lotus seed paste is quiet expensive.
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Dried Lotus Seed |
White Kidney Bean |
Lotus Seed Paste |
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Sweet bean paste (豆沙).
Sweet bean paste is a common filling found in Chinese desserts. Available in a choice of colors: red (from adzuki beans); yellow (from mung beans, husked and split); or black (from black soy beans).
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Adzuki Bean |
Mung Bean |
Sweet Bean Paste |
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Jujube paste (棗泥).
Jujube paste is sweet paste made from the ripe fruits of the jujube plant. It taste slightly sour and in dark red color.
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Five Kernel (五仁).
Five Kernel is a filling consisting of 5 types of nuts and seeds, coarsely chopped and held together with maltose syrup. There are nuts and seeds as well as walnuts, pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds, peanuts, sesame, or almonds. The filling mixture will usually contain candied winter melon, Chinese dried ham, or pieces of rock sugar as additional flavoring.
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Moon cake crust
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Traditionally lard is a vital ingredient in moon cake recipes to optimum mouth feel, however vegetable oil also use for vegetarian consumer or Muslim consumer. Type of Moon cake filling is vary from region to region but its’ there are about 3 type of crust always used by Chinese baker to make moon cake. There are like:
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Chewy type of crust.
Chewy type of crust commonly found at Cantonese-Style moon cake. It have a reddish-brown tone and glossy sheen. Chewy crust is made of thick sugar syrup mixture, lye water, flour and oil, these ingredient make the crust rich taste and chewy yet tender texture. Increase the maltose syrup into the mixture will increase the crust Chew-ness. Some time bakeries bake the chewy type of crust into piglet shapes (Cantonese called as “Jue Zai Bang”; 猪仔饼; little piglet biscuit). They usually will package into small plastic basket to symbolize fish being caught or piglets being bound for sale.
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Flaky type of crust.
Flaky type of crust is very similar texture to puff pastry and indicative of Suzhou-style moon cake. It is make by rolling together alternating layers of oily dough and flour that has been stir-fried in oil makes the dough.
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Tender type of crust.
Tender type of crust is as well as short crust pastry used in Western piecrusts or tart shells. It is made from homogenous mix of sugar, oil, flour, and water. This type of crust also usually use for making Chinese pastries, such as the egg tart.
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Variation of moon cake
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The type of moon cake is variety from region to region, there are like:
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Cantonese-style moon cake.
Cantonese-style moon cake is he most commonly found moon cake. It is originated from Guangdong. The ingredients used for filling are various, like lotus seed paste, melon seed paste, ham, chicken, duck, roast pork, mushrooms, and egg yolks, etc.
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Suzhou-style moon cake.
Suzhou-style moon cake is well known with its layers of flaky dough and generous allotment of sugar and lard. This type of moon cake is made for a few taste like sweet, savoury taste moon cake and hot taste with pork mince.
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Teochew-style moon cake.
Teochew-style moon cake is another flaky crust variety, but its size is larger than Suzhou style moon cake. Its diameter is similar to the Cantonese style, but thinner in thickness. It’s use variety of fillings, the aroma of lard after roasting is a vital point.
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Cantonese-style moon cake |
Lotus seed paste mooncake |
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Modern Moon Cake
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Nowadays many bakeries had put their creativity and invention to create variation of novelty moon cake items.
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The moon cake filling is varying, such as taro paste, coffee, chocolate, nuts (walnuts, mixed nuts, etc), fruits (prunes, pineapples, melons, etc), vegetables (sweet potatoes, etc), ham and so on.
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Traditionally the moon cake is require to bake, however some new type of moon cake crust are require to refrigerating. Such as snow-skin moon cake (冰皮月饼) its texture is similar to mochi, Jelly crust moon cake its made of gelling mixtures such as agar, gelatin and flavored with a wide variety of fruit flavorings.
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In conjunctions with nowadays health-conscious, many bakeries offer miniature, fat-free moon cakes or low sugar and high-fiber moon cake. Some are made of yogurt and jelly also. Moon cake also being wrapped in airtight plastic and accompanied with a tiny food preserver packet to increase the hygiene ness. The moon cake ingredient like type filling, sugar and oil quantity also state clear at the moon cake packet, thus customer can pick up moon cake that suit their taste and diet.
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冰皮月饼 |
Snow-skin moon cake |
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Moon cake culture role
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Moon cake is eating during Mid-Autumn Festival. Every year the fifteenth day of the eighth month at lunar calendar, Chinese celebrate Mid-Autumn festival, which also called as Moon Cake festival. Usually this is a day where the moon is at its maximum brightness for the entire year, in the year of 2007 Moon Cake festival is falls on September 25th. Moon Cake Festival is consider as the third major festival of the Chinese and corresponds to harvest festival observed by Western cultures. The full moon day is a good symbolism for Chinese and plays a significant part of this festival; traditionally it is a symbol for reunion. The Chinese people celebrate by coming together as families to eat, drink and be merry. Some peoples even crowed at open space or mountaintop to get a glimpse of this season's auspicious full moon.
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Historical legend about the festival
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There are a few legends about the origin of this festival. Such as:
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First lady lives on the moon. The legend surrounding the "lady living in the moon" dates back to ancient times, to a day when ten suns appeared at once in the sky. The Emperor ordered a famous archer to shoot down the nine extra suns. Once the task was accomplished, Goddess of Western Heaven rewarded the archer with a pill that would make him immortal. However, his wife found the pill, took it, and was banished to the moon as a result. Legend says that her beauty is greatest on the day of the Moon festival.
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The old man on the moon is another legend storey. On this day the "Man in the Moon" was spotted at an inn, carrying a writing tablet. When questioned, he said he was recording the names of all the happy couples who were fated to marry and live happily forever after. Accordingly, just as June is the traditional month for exchanging nuptials in the west, many Chinese weddings are held during the eighth lunar month, with the fifteenth day being the most popular.
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Ming Revolution during Yuan Dynasty is the most famous legend for this festival. In 1280 AD, Song Dynasty is collapse and conquers by the Mongolians as Yuan Dynasty (1280AD -1368 AD). During Yuen dynasty it overrun by Mongolian, Chinese people were oppressed, persecuted and treated like slaves. Eventually the Chinese planned a revolution to be held during the August Moon Festival in 1368 to overthrow Mongolians. Chu Yuen-chang (朱元璋), and his senior deputy, Liu Po-wen(劉伯溫), discussed battle plan and develops a secret moon cake strategy to take a certain walled city held by the Mongol enemy. Due to Mongolians don’t eat moon cakes, thus moon cakes had become a their communication channel to exchange secret message. Chinese bakers were told to send moon cakes to all Chinese households with the message to execute all Mongolians after the August Moon family gathering. Chinese families were instructed to not to eat the moon cakes until the 15th of the 8th lunar moon. When the arrived, people opened their cakes and found hidden messages advising them to coordinate their uprising with the troops outside.
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Nowadays people are become more health-conscious and popularity of moon cake has declined in recent years. Part of the reason is that traditional moon cake is made with lard, and a lot of sugar. In additional Moon Cake Festival has become more commercialized. People are focusing more on the exchange of gifts, rather than traditional celebrations, such that its symbolism has eroded. Businessmen always buy a lot of moon cake as present for their client.
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Moon cake Moulds and its Uses
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Traditional moon cake moulds are carved from wood. Bakers use a wooden mold to shape each moon cake. The mold must be seasoned first by soaking it in oil for a few days. Then pour away the oil and wash clean, dry it well and dust with flour before use. The trend is moving towards metal (in moon cake factories) or plastic moulds.
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Moon cake Moulds |
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