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Traditional baked mooncake
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Traditional baked mooncake

Mooncake (Simplified Chinese: }}}; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is a Chinese confection that is traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival, although they can be eaten at other times of the year as well. Typical mooncakes are either round or rectangular puck shaped pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. They have a relatively thin crust (2-3 mm), which surrounds a thick pasty filling and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs. Mooncakes are typically rich, heavy and dense compared with most Western cakes and pastries. It is usually eaten in small wedges accompanied by Chinese tea.

Contents

Traditional

Traditional mooncakes are typically baked and consists of a thin tender skin eveloping, a sweet and slightly oily filling. The moon cake can also contain single or multiple whole salted egg yolks in its center to symbolize the full moon. The saltiness of the yolk balances well with the sweet filling in the mooncake. Although rarely so, mooncakes can also be steamed or fried.

Traditional mooncakes have an imprint on top consisting of the Chinese characters for "longevity" or "harmony" as well as the name of the bakery and filling in the moon cake. Imprints of a moon, a woman on the moon, flowers, vines, or a rabbit may surround the characters for additional decoration.

Mooncakes are expensive and considered a delicacy. Making them and their fillings is also a labor intensive process, as such few people make them at home and choose instead to purchased them at Asian markets and bakeries.

Fillings

Many types of fillings can be found in traditional mooncakes according to the region culture:

Crusts

Traditional mooncake vary widely depending on the region where the mooncake is produced. While most regions produce traditional mooncakes with many types of fillings, they usually only make their mooncake from one type of crust or another. There are three types of mooncake crust used in Chinese cuisine:

Regional variations

There are many regional variants of the mooncake, which have likely evolved over time. Development of these variants were likely governed by the availability of resources, economics, and regional preferences. The most widely-known types of traditional mooncakes are:

Modern

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Jelly mooncake with yam-paste filling
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Jelly mooncake with yam-paste filling

Modern mooncakes differ mainly from traditional types most vividly in the type of fillings that are offered. For instance, mooncakes containing taro paste and pineapple, which were considered novelty items at their time of invention have in recent years become commonplace items. In addition, ingredients such as coffee, chocolate, nuts (walnuts, mixed nuts, etc), fruits (prunes, pineapples, melons, etc), vegetables (sweet potatoes, etc), ham, and even lychees have been added to give a modern twist to the traditional recipes.

Ice-skin mooncakes (冰皮)

Modern varieties of mooncakes are also different from their traditional counterparts in that they may have a glutinous rice skin, similar to that of a mochi. These moon cakes are know colloquially as "snow-skin mooncakes" or "ice-skin mooncakes" (冰皮 or 冰皮月餅).

Ice-skin mooncakes first appeared on the market in the early 1980's. These non-baked, chilled mooncakes were initially filled with traditional fillings such as lotus seed, red bean, or mung bean paste. However the lauch of a champagne truffle snow-skin mooncake in 1994 by Raffles Hotel in Singapore, triggered a wave of modern mooncakes. Häagen-Dazs quickly followed on from this innovation, and were one of the first to create an ice-cream mooncake, with a choice of either the "traditional", snow-skin, or Belgian white, milk and dark chocolate crusts.

Following this bit of lateral thinking, it was obvious these non-baked mooncakes could be filled with pretty much anything that could be made into a paste. An explosion of new flavours appeared and spanned the range from:

White kidney bean paste or plain ice-cream are usually used as a base of flavours such as green tea, coffee, or ginseng, which are not thick enough or cannot be usually in large enough quantities to be a filling on its own

Healthy mooncakes

Pink jelly mooncake with red-bean paste filling
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Pink jelly mooncake with red-bean paste filling

To adapt to today’s health conscious and Westernized lifestyle, many bakeries offer miniature mooncakes and fat-free mooncakes. Some are made of yogurt, jelly and fat-free ice-cream. Even high fibre, low-sugar mooncakes have made their appearance. To be competitive, bakers boast about how little sugar and oil they use in their mooncakes. Customers can pick and choose the size and filling that suits their taste and diet. For added hygiene, each cake is often wrapped in airtight plastic, accompanied by a tiny food preserver packet. The new version is well-accepted among young people in China.

Japan

In Japan, mooncakes are sold year-round, mainly in Japan's Chinatowns, pronounced in Japanese as "Geppei." Unlike the original Chinese mooncakes, mooncakes in Japan almost never contain an egg yolk in the center. In fact, most people in Japan do not know that mooncakes ever contained eggs in the first place.

Cultural role

The festival is intricately linked to the legends of Chang E, the mythical Moon Goddess of Immortality.

But despite its central role in the Mid-Autumn festival, the popularity of mooncakes has declined in recent years. Part of the reason is that people are becoming more health-conscious. Traditional mooncakes are made with lard, and a lot of sugar. Another reason for the decline in popularity is that the Moon Festival has become increasingly commercialized. People are focusing more on the exchange of gifts, and less on the traditional celebrations, such that its symbolism has eroded. Many mooncakes are bought by businessmen who give them to their clients as presents. [link]

See also

External links




 





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