Mooncakes!
Tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival! This is one of the traditional Chinese festivities that have become more important in recent years since it was appointed as a national holiday in 2008. A few years ago I wrote a post explaining this festivity; here’s the link in case you missed it.
This year, the Mid-Autumn Festival fell on a strange date. October 1st is also China’s national day and an official holiday that lasts for a week. With the addition of the Mid-Autumn Festival, this year we are having holidays from October 1 to 8. (Well, but we had to work last Sunday and will have to work October 10, Saturday, to make up some days. Thanks, China!).
There are three main aspects to the Mid-Autumn Festival: You are supposed to gaze at the full moon, have a family reunion and eat mooncakes. So, for the past month, the whole of China went on a mooncake-buying and mooncake-gifting frenzy. We have received SIX boxes of mooncakes in total. Each box contains between 5 and 8 mooncakes, and each mooncake has 700-800 calories on average. It will be a miracle if I manage to not gain any extra weight.
However, the strange thing this year is that we barely got any of the traditional mooncakes, with the usual fillings of bean paste or egg yolk. Instead, we got some specialties and some new mooncake creations, and I thought about sharing them here!
– The Starbucks mooncakes
Someone gifted my husband a box of Starbucks mooncakes. There were 8, two of each flavour: espresso, egg lava, jujube and bacon with black pepper (!!). Baby A. loved the jujube ones. The bacon ones were weird. The Starbucks giftpack also included a scarf made with recycled plastic bottles! It looks like silk!
Not white chocolate… it’s a bacon and black pepper mooncake!
– The Yunnan mooncakes
Someone from Yunnan gifted this box to my husband. They’re different because the filling is some kind of ham with a lot of sugar. There were also some jasmine flavoured ones. But the really special thing in this mooncake box was that there was a giant one…
Normal sized mooncake on the right, half eaten monster mooncake on the left.
– The Haagen Dazs mooncakes
I talked about these ones on my other post about Mid-Autumn Festival too. Actually, they are not mooncakes at all, and maybe that’s why they are so popular! This year we got two boxes, one of the ice cream sandwiches we tried last time and another of a special edition for this year.
Packed like mooncakes, but 100% ice cream.
– The homemade mooncakes
Yesterday, my husband’s “cousin” (actually, his godfather’s daughter), brought us a box with 5 mooncakes she said were homemade. I don’t know if she made them herself or what, but they look pretty professional to me! They are also in a shape that’s not the usual one (at least around here), and the exterior is flaky.
We already ate the Starbucks and the Yunnan ones (except the half big one in the picture), but the others are still waiting for us… Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
I am envious! I went to find some over a week ago and everyone in Los Angeles is sold out! I’ve never seen this before and am sad we will have no mooncakes. Andy says it’s because giving mooncakes is like giving a lucky gift–and this year has been so shitty for everyone in the U.S. that we all are trying to give each other better luck.
I figure it was just the flour shortage due to COVID baking.
Oh, no! I’m sorry to hear that. If we were in the same country, I’d send you some of mine! There was definitely no flour shortage here…
Moon cakes are delicious, but remember to eat a small amount of them many times during the shelf life. Because all in all, it contains too much sugar and fat.
Well, I said this because I was shocked by the monster moon cake from Yunnan.
Haha, thanks for the tip! If I eat a whole mooncake I feel sick later, it’s just too much for my stomach. That huge one was eaten by several people and during several days 😄
It’s mooncake crazy here in Hong Kong too! I work in a lifestyle media company and we’ve received up to 15 different boxes of mooncakes from hotels, restaurants etc… the Haagen Dazs ones are always my favourite! 🙂
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com
I just had a white chocolate and blueberry ice cream “mooncake” today… It was yummy!
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! and Happy Mooncake eating :D
Thanks Lani! Is Mid Autumn festival celebrated in Thailand? Are there mooncakes there? Just curious 🤭
Plenty of mooncakes here. If there’s a celebration I don’t know about it, but prob among the Chinese population in select areas.
Thanks for reminding me about the Mid-Autumn Festival. I don’t go to the grocery store anymore. I just order on line. But you’d think someone would have advertised the festival somewhere that I would have seen. Anyway, I’ve been eating too much as it is. I think I’d like the Starbucks espresso cake. It’s very attractive. I’ve always liked the ordinary one with an egg yolk.
I don’t know how I managed to finish our confinement back in February without gaining weight, I also ate a lot. And even now that we are back to normal I barely go out during the week as I simply cannot find the time, so I got in the habit of “walking in place” while I watch cartoons with my son after I finish work. I guess it’s better than sitting on the sofa!
This was great! When my daughter lived in Singapore, she loved to eat the moon cakes!
Right! I bet there are lots of traditional mooncakes there. And probably maybe even other traditions that are already lost in China!
Not a huge fan of them either – we used to receive quite a few boxes as gifts at the Embassy in BJ but I would give them all to my Chinese colleagues and Ayi. I love how beautifully they are packaged but just didn’t enjoy the taste. But those ice cream ones look fab and I remember you mentioned them in a previous post.
Regifting is definitely something to do with mooncakes hahaha. Next year I will regift some of mine instead of eating them all…
These are some fancy mooncakes! The Haagen Dazs ones look amazing eventhough as you mentioned they are ice-cream sandwiches. Do they taste like mooncakes? :P Here in Melbourne where most shops have been closed because of lockdown so haven’t seen too many mooncakes around.
No, they don’t taste like mooncakes! They were regular icecream in different flavors.
Sorry to hear about the lockdown. Have things gotten any better lately?
Oh, just like regular ice-cream. What a great excuse to eat ice-cream 😀
Things are much better now in Australia. Shops and restaurants are opening up this week after so many months. Work from home is still encouraged though. Not complaining about that 😀