Mooncakes!

 It is Mid-Autumn Festival and that means it's time for mooncakes! 

The Mid-Autumn Festival has over 3,000 years of history, originating from ancient Chinese moon worship practices and harvest celebrations. It became an official holiday during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) and is now one of China's major festivals. Popular legends, like the tale of Chang'e and Hou Yi (featured in my new book) are associated with the festival and explain many of its traditions, such as mooncakes and moon-gazing.

Mooncakes are a traditional delicacy of the Mid-Autumn Festival. They are characterised by their thin, pastry crust and sweet, rich fillings like lotus seed paste, red bean paste,  or a combination of nuts and seeds. Many different variations have popped up over the years, and we have tried three of the biggest vegan brands in Hong Kong: Years, The Cakery, and CocoParadise. 

I love how Years and CocoParadise both opted out of the traditional and often excessive packaging used. This packaging includes trays, individual wrapping, boxes, gift bags, with some sets containing dozens of unnecessary items leading to what we call the moon cake packaging problem. This issue is a serious environmental concern and I love that both these companies have reduced their packaging.

The first mooncake we tried is the Pandan Coconut Custard Mooncake from The Cakery. Pandan is a tropical plant from South-East Asia that is used to infuse food and drinks with a pleasant aroma and slightly sweet, grassy, vanilla flavour. A really special mooncake and we really enjoyed this one!

In the Years mooncake box there were four flavours: Uiji Matcha with Red Bean, Chocolate, Low Sugar Chenpi with Red Bean Paste, and Pandan Mochi. We didn't enjoy the matcha one so it didn't make it into the photo, but the Chocolate and Pandan was excellent. I didn't know that Chenpi is sun-dried and aged mandarin or tangerine peel. It gave the Chenpi red bean mooncake a very distinct taste that I am sure many people would love.

The stand-out vegan mooncakes this year for me was The Cakery. I did not like the excessive packaging but the mooncakes were very special and tasted great. In this range they had Black Sesame Lava. As a black sesame fan this was so good, I could have had a whole box all by myself. The Pistachio Mochi was incredible, I really love pistachios so this was an easy win for me.

But by far the best moon cake this year was the Red Date Mochi. Popped in the oven or microwave for a few minutes and it will probably be the best mooncake you will ever eat. The fact that it doesn't have a paste inside but an actual real date, sealed the deal.

中秋节快乐