Do you like moon cake?

[edelweis]

I've only had moon cake once and didn't find it to my taste - bland except for the center which was way too salty for my idea of a dessert.

However it was a packaged long-shelf-life industrial moon cake.

Maybe the real thing is different?

 

Please tell me about your experience with moon cake.

[陳德聰]

This past year, it was very fashionable (and as it turned out, delicious!) for people to make their own mooncakes and distribute to friends in Chinatown. People were asking on social media where to buy moulds and sharing recipes and sadly I didn’t take part in the making of any, but I did benefit from many many many of my friends’ hard work and I must say, some (definitely not all!) were very much to my liking.

 

I am mostly just bragging because I couldn’t tell you what was different between the recipes beyond the ratio of the core to the crust and the use of different pastes (I like savoury duck egg ones just as much as I like lotus paste ones).

 

Someone made a mochi dessert one with ice cream because showing off is the name of the game. But I didn’t mind the tiny store-bought ones I had either.

[Shelley]

Never had them, and until someone comes up with a nut free one I never will.

[ChTTay]

I find most of the traditional, shop bought moon cakes are disgusting. 

 

I've had a home made red bean type mooncake that was great. I've also had a starbucks moon cake that, although very very sweet, it was still pretty okay.

 

I think the best bet is find home made ones. 

[anonymoose]

I think "do you like moon cake" is too vague or too broad a question.

 

The thing is that moon cakes come in all sorts of sizes, shapes and fillings - some contain meat, come contain egg yolks, some fruit, some bean paste and so on. And then there are even ice cream moon cakes.

 

Personally, I like the fruit/nut ones, and the ones made with lotus seed paste, and ice cream moon cakes.

[889]

"Never had them, and until someone comes up with a nut free one I never will."

 

There are some special mooncakes with nuts, like 五仁月饼. But your standard lotus-seed-paste-and-duck-egg mooncake doesn't contain nuts. Unless you're including seeds in the broad nut category.

[Shelley]

2 minutes ago, 889 said:

your standard lotus-seed-paste-and-duck-egg mooncake doesn't contain nuts.

 

Unless they are being made with a conscious effort to exclude nuts I wouldn't trust any moon cakes or even any food made in any establishment in China, UK, USA and the whole world to be 100% nut free and as the tiniest amount can set off a serious reaction, its just not worth the risk.

 

I actually cook everything I eat from scratch and never go out to eat or indeed even go round to friends to eat.  It is hard to put enough stress on how dangerous it is and how careful you have to be, read all labels, ban nuts etc from the kitchen and impress how easy cross contamination is.

 

And what actually constitutes a nut, groundnuts or peanuts are actually peas and I also am allergic to peas, chick peas, lentils and mung beans to name a few.

 

So I might just have to make some my self.

[Geiko]

I haven't tried the real thing, only the mooncakes one can buy in Europe, in Chinese supermarkets or online. I'm not too fond of the ones with egg yolk, I don't like the taste of the dry yolk. However, I love mooncakes with red bean filling. This year I also tried one with 冬瓜 filling, the texture was different from the other ones, it was eatable, but not delicious.

[DavyJonesLocker]

The average shop bought ones are pretty awful to be honest. However I did get some really good ones as presents this year. Very elaborate packaging and actually tasted great.

 

Many chinese tell me that they are not fond of them, and are just used for gifts mainly.  . Maybe they are the equivalent as the  brussel sprout on a christmas dinner.

 

For anyone in Beijing: the 稻香村 小吃店 pastry shop in Beijing ones are pretty good. Also got some great homemade ones from Harbin too. 

[ZhangKaiRong]

I don't really like the traditional egg-yolk and lotus seed paste ones, but I'm quite fond of the modern tastes. When I was in Beijing on a business trip last year before, I bought some really good coconut paste filled ones, those were delicious.

This year, the local Chinatown here had some very unusual mooncakes - the outer part of the cake was not baked but rather soft and white, and the filling was some sort of milky cream. It was also very good, even though it didn't resemble traditional mooncakes at all.

[Flickserve]

Singapore is quite imaginative with different styles of mooncakes.

 

This year, I had some mooncakes from the Peninsula Hotel in HK. Expensive and gets sold out because they are only made in limited amounts. I wondered what the fuss was about........ Until I tried it. It's exquisite with a lighter more 'fluffy' type of texture. 

[yueni]

My favourite mooncakes, are the ones I grew up on, which were the Cantonese-style lotus seed paste with 1 or 2 egg yolks in them. We used to wait in line for hours at a very specific mooncake store that sold them fresh out of the oven.

 

The store-bought ones are crappy facsimiles of the real ones. I don't like any other kind (or at least, I don't consider them mooncakes), because I'm a mooncake snob. Adzuki bean ones are okay, but not something I would eat by choice. I had the sweet nut & fruit ones when I was in Beijing, and I disliked them and will never go near them again.

 

I do also like the modern "ice skin" varieties that have ice cream in them. I had ones from haagen dazs that were super delicious. I would've never bought them on my own because of how expensive they are, but I would totally eat them again. 

[Tomsima]

I was convinced I hated moon cakes after years of trying ones given to me at mid-autumn festival.

 

But this year was different.

 

I got given a homemade one and I was amazed to find that it was honestly absolutely OK.

 

I actually took two bites of it

 

and took it home

 

and finished it after breaking off small chunks over the course of three days.

[lips]

Wrong time of the year to even think about mooncake for me.

[edelweis]

Thanks all for the replies. Maybe we'll have a baking competition next year

I had no idea there were so many different types.

Is it possible that appreciation for the egg yolk taste requires training from childhood ?

 

11 hours ago, lips said:

Wrong time of the year to even think about mooncake for me.

Spoilsport. Did you have too many last time?

 

By the way, what is the proper time of day to eat moon cake?

After meals? between meals? is it ok to have it at breakfast?

 

[Tomsima]

1 hour ago, edelweis said:

what is the proper time of day to eat moon cake?

Surely the correct answer is 'while admiring the moon on the Eve of Mid Autumn festival'?

[edelweis]

certainly but what if you can't finish the multiple cakes that you received as gifts ? do you just throw the leftovers away?

[Geiko]

I buy boxes of four mooncakes, and start eating them every evening one or two days before 中秋 until I finish them all. 

[DavyJonesLocker]

This year, I ate about 30 easily (all from gifts). For Chinese , eating mooncakes outside 中秋节 is like a Westerner eating Christmas cake in February. I'm not bothered though. I just see it like a regular Chinese pastry. I quite like the "5 nuts" variety. There is a bit if a bite to it.

[Xiao Kui]

I do not like them on a boat, I do not like them with a goat.

(Except some of the homemade ones ;), seems to me the fancier the outside, the nastier the inside.)