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Chinese Mooncakes

Mooncakes are traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn or Harvest Moon festival. These small round cakes symbolize family unity. They are traditionally made by bakers using beautiful hand-carved wooden molds. Some mooncakes are made with a golden yellow egg yolk in the center that looks like the moon. If you’d like to try making your own mooncakes, here’s a recipe.

Mooncakes are made of flour, brown sugar and stuffed with sweets. Different fillings are used in different regions of China: white sugar paste and brown date paste in the north; ham, dates or preserved apricots, walnuts, lard or watermelon seeds in the south. Many traditional recipes call for a labor-intensive sweet bean-paste filling.

According to popular belief, the custom of eating mooncakes began in the late Yuan dynasty. The Han people of that time resented the Mongol rule of the Yuan Dynasty. In 1368, revolutionaries led by Chu Yuan-chang, plotted to usurp the throne. Chu needed to find a way of uniting the people to revolt on the same day without letting the Mongol rulers learn of the plan.

The revolutionaries spread a rumor that a plague was ravaging the land and that disaster could be prevented only by eating a special mooncake. The mooncakes were then distributed only to the Han people, who found, on cutting the cakes open, that they contained the message “Revolt on the fifteenth of the eighth moon.” Since that time, mooncakes have become an integral part of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

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