What is Mooncake?

Happy Mid-Autumn Moon Festival! This is a traditional Chinese holiday that dates back 3000 years! It began during the Zhou Dynasty when people worshipped the moon.

Legend has it that the Sky Emperor’s daughter Princess Chang’e visited earth and fell in love with a mortal man. They had a son. When the emperor found out he forced Chang’e to return to the heavenly palace. She was devastated.

When Chang’e’s son grew up, he set out to meet his mother and climbed to the heavenly palace. She was overjoyed to see him and taught him to make the celestial dessert mooncake. The emperor found out and banished Chang’e’s son from the palace, but when he saw how heartbroken his daughter was, he let Chang’e see her son once a year, the day we now celebrate as the Mid-Autumn festival. Chang’e’s son returned to earth and shared the recipe for this delicious sweet with other humans.

Mooncake are often filled with lotus paste, red bean paste, jujube paste, mixed nuts or duck egg yolk. My favorite is egg yolk. The inside is usually a bit salty and the outside is sweet dough. The face of the mooncake is stamped with a design, either a flower, chinese characters, a chinese geometric design, or a combination. Mooncake are golden in color and soft. Families usually cut mooncake into eighths and share the slices.

Have you ever tried mooncake or made it yourself? Let me know in the comments below!