Oct 1st is the Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Moon Festival) this year! People usually celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival with mooncakes (月餅, yuè bǐng). Mooncake is a kind of pastries with sweetened paste as the fillings inside. There are many styles and flavors of mooncakes. Besides the traditional flavors, people have been creative and came up with some variations of classic mooncakes nowadays. We are going to introduce the most prevalent ones. Get your tea or coffee ready!
1. 蛋黃蓮蓉月餅White Lotus Seed Paste Mooncake with egg yolk
Filling with lotus seed paste and a salted egg yolk. This kind of moon cake is popular in Southern China.
2. 伍仁月餅 Assorted Nuts Mooncake
Filling with roasted and smashed almonds, sesame seeds, peanuts, sunflower seeds or other kinds of nuts. It tastes sweet, nutty and a bit crunchy!
3. 雙黃豆沙月餅 Red Bean Paste Mooncake with Two Yolks
The most classic one. It is filled with red bean paste and two (sometimes only one) salted egg yolk. Red bean paste can be replaced by jujube, which also taste very good.
4. 綠豆椪 Mung Bean & Meat Pastry
Which is very popular in Taiwan. It is filled with sweetened mung bean paste and sometimes with a little bit braised pork or pork sung.
5. 芋頭酥 Taro pastry
Filled with smash taro paste. It is also very popular in Taiwan. Some bakeries will add mochi or egg yolk in it.
6. 冰皮月餅Snow Skin Mooncake
This is a non-bake mooncake that emerged in recent years at Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Singapore. It is usually served cold. The texture tests like mochi. There are a great variety of innovative fillings of Snow Skin Mooncake such as red bean, custard, chocolate, strawberry, etc.
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 中秋節快樂！
Ni Hao Chinese provides a series of videos for festivals and holidays worldwide. Check the video about Mid-Autumn Festival and celebrate it with the interesting traditions, history, foods, and art crafts.