Moon Cake Madness

During the Autumn Moon Festival, stores here filled with moon cakes of all shapes and sizes. There isn’t just one flavor of moon cakes. They can be filled with sweet, salty, or savory items. Haagen Dazs has come to the aid of those who like the idea of a moon cake but prefer a creamy treat, making Moon Cake ice cream. Certainly, there is a moon cake for everyone.

Moon cakes and baskets of fruit are given as gifts this time of year. Here is one of the very traditional moon cakes (in lotus seed and double egg yolk flavor) we received:



Last year, we decided to make moon cakes ourselves. Bakery shelves in Kansas City weren’t exactly brimming with them and it was a great chance to incorporate a Chinese celebration into our own traditions. Even though moon cakes are readily available here, we continued the tradition this year.

Our moon cake recipe comes from a book called Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats. The ingredients are all normal things that you could find in a KC grocery store at a reasonable price, which means the exact opposite is true here (perhaps this is an indicator that our recipe isn't the most authentic!). And, wouldn’t you know that while it seems like nothing here is sold in bulk, the only milk powder I could find came in a super sized container (we needed ¾ cup).

In any case, Dave and Lydia led the moon cake making effort, first working on the batter that is the outside of moon cake.

I focused on the filling. You will find no lotus seed or egg yolks in our moon cakes – our most exotic filling item was dates…which I’m happy to report had no “stone.”

Once baked and cooled, in a break from the recipe, we glazed the moon cakes with frosting – really, isn’t everything better with a coating of sugar??

We have yet to buy a suitable mold to make decorative moon cakes, so they aren’t anything exciting to look at…but we like to think we make up for appearance with flavor! Here is the final product:

Yum!