Saturday, 10 September 2011
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Mooncakes
This is a guest post from Kirbie's Cravings.
It’s almost that time of year again: the Mid-Autumn Festival. Because the Mid-Autumn Festival follows the lunar calendar, it falls on a different date each year. This year, it will be celebrated on September 12, 2011. It’s been a yearly tradition for me on this blog to do a little post about the holiday.
There isn’t as much celebration of the holiday in the US, though there may be some local lantern festivals. The holiday is observed most commonly through buying and eating mooncakes. Traditional mooncakes are baked in round and square molds with beautiful patterns. The cake consists of a thin brown layer which is filled with various sweet flavored fillings like red bean, lotus paste, green tea, pineapple.
The most expensive flavor usually is a lotus paste with double egg yolks. I’m not quite sure why the salted egg yolks are so prized but mooncakes containing them cost quite a bit more than the other flavors of mooncakes.
Mooncakes are very sweet and so are usually served with a pot of tea. While browsing through food blogs, I actually came across several food bloggers who baked their own mooncakes. It actually doesn’t look too hard but the problem is I don’t have the right mold shapes. I tried searching for them, but couldn’t find any sources other than online ones. If anyone knows of any, please let me know.
Hopefully next year I can attempt making my own. Mooncakes can be found at your local Asian grocery store. They are usually sold in beautifully decorated boxes which you can then use for other things. In Asia, there are a lot more variety of mooncakes. Each year, it seems that bakers attempt to make them nicer, prettier, and more expensive. But in the US, I’ve only seen the traditional ones.
You can view my previous mooncake posts here and here.
Have you ever had a mooncake? What did you think?
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Comments (34)
Never tried them, but I want too. How does it taste?????
So glad to see a post about mooncakes because it is very much apart of Chinese culture and tradition. Even before the actual moon festival day people will give each other mooncakes as gifts. But be cautious! Each one is like...1000 calories loll....or close to it.
The lotus one with the yoke is my favorite! But I really want to try fruity-flavored ones, but those are probably rare in the US.
I've always wanted to try them but I never have.
OMNOMNOM c:
I LOVE mooncake! I'll admit that my favorite part is the egg.
Mooncakes AND an ad for blueberry pocky on the side? I think I just came.
They look good.. is it like a dessert? or no ?
it certainly takes some getting used to if you haven't had it before.. its a condensed mix of saltiness and sweetness... a little moist but a little dry at the same time. i can only eat a quarter of a mooncake and die afterwards from its richness.
Ahahaha, what a coinky-dink! I got half a mooncake sitting on my table right here!
It's the one w/ the 2 eggs. But I personally do not like the 2 eggs. The thick-salty-flavor kinda kills the sweetness.. I'd prefer the durian or taro flavor!!!
Loveeeee mooncake ever since I was like 7!!! :O
Back in Viet Nam, I also have a lantern lol It was a goldfish! :D
<33333333 so good
traditional mooncake too sweet to me. Prefer those filled with custard or the cold one. Well, those are more like dessert rather than mooncake. Happy Mid Autumn Festival :)
My parents try not to eat the egg yolks, while I only eat the egg yolks. :) I love mooncakess
i just had some lotus mooncake
my parents love the yoke,, i think its grosseven better in asia you can get all types of mooncake flavours (green tea & mango is awesome!)I'm still not a fan of the yolk, just like the sweet part
but i think western people doesn't like egg so much?
I love mooncakes! Tomorrow is officially the Moon Festival! I love it with the egg yolk in the center and with the lotus paste. It's amazing that it comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and flavors.
so good, my fav!
I love them!
hmm my fav mooncake's the snowskin ones with white lotus paste and yolk.
(:
My fav are the red bean baked ones, no yolk... the simplest of the lot. Over here (Singapore), you can get a bigass durian snowskin one from Goodwood Park Hotel & it costs SGD$50 PER MOONCAKE, so a box of 4 would cost you $200 for your token of esteem. Oh, Happy Mid-Autumn!
have been receiving a lot of these recently! Not a fan of mooncake!
yep, and i find them much too sweet. my favourite would have to be the 5-seed mooncake, though i've yet to try the Hong Kong and Japanese ones - they look soo good. especially, the snow skin ones.
hunn... you gota try vietnamese moon cakes. they have different flavors which include meat or even shark fins.
I thought the expensive ones were the ones with the different mixtures of seeds inside. I've always thought the ones with the egg filling were the cheaper kind... at least, that's what my parents have always said.