For those of you who aren’t familiar, Mooncakes are Chinese pastry traditionally eaten during Mid-Autumn Festival. This is when the moon is believe to be at its most beautiful and roundest on the night.

Legend has it that, the Mid-Autumn festival is intricately linked to the legends of Chang E, the mythical Moon Goddess of Immortality. There are also stories that mooncakes were used as a medium by the Ming revolutionaries to secretly distribute letters in order to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China in the Yuan dynasty.

Then again I am no expert in Chinese legend or its history. Whenever I saw a bakery selling mooncakes I know it is that time of the year and I just have to get one.

A traditional mooncakes have an imprint on to consisting of the Chinese characters for ‘longevity’ or sometime it’s just the name of the bakery.

The typical traditional filing are either red bean paste or lotus paste. However modern mooncakes have various types of filings ranging from cream cheese, tiramisu, green tea and even chocolate or durian.

As for me, I love the traditional red bean paste. Usually there is a salted egg yolk in the middle, but I prefer to have it plain. This kind of beats the purpose as I think the yolk sort of symbolize the full roundness of the moon.

I don’t give much thought of the legend anyway.

Popularity: 21% [?]