If you’ve ever stepped foot in an Asian bakery or grocery store during autumn, you’ve probably seen stacks of assorted boxes with variations of the popular Chinese pastry: the mooncake. Enclosed in decorated metal tins or glossy boxes to make them easy to gift, mooncakes are commonly associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is also known as the Mooncake Festival. This year’s Mid-Autumn Festival takes place on Tuesday, September 17, 2024, but the festival takes place every year on the 15th day of the 8th month in the Chinese lunar calendar. While the Mid-Autumn Festival is known for its selection of delectable food, none is as iconic as the mooncake.

“Mooncakes take the shape of a full moon that represents family reunion, happiness and completeness. In Chinese culture, roundness symbolizes bliss and luck,” says Sijia Yao, Assistant Professor of Chinese Language and Culture at Soka University of America.

What are mooncakes?

Mooncakes are round, full moon-shaped Chinese pastries that can fit in the palm of your hand. Typically given as gifts during the Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncakes are now sold and consumed year-round. Mooncakes have a golden outer crust that encloses a filling inside, which can be sweet, savory or a combination. Because they are dense and rich — the filling is traditionally made with at least one egg yolk to symbolize the full moon — mooncakes are meant to be shared and eaten in small slivers accompanied with a cup of tea.

What is the meaning behind mooncakes?

The round shape of the mooncake is a strong symbol for completeness, wholeness and family unity. The Mid-Autumn Festival, when mooncakes are typically exchanged among the community, is a time when families come together. Gifting a box of mooncakes to friends, family and business clients during the Mid-Autumn festival is a gesture of gratitude and generosity.

Traditional rituals and beliefs about the moon have been passed down throughout Chinese history and still remain associated with modern mooncakes. Yao says, “The moon was worshiped in ancient China and played an important role in agriculture, the calendar, customs and poetry. Mooncakes used to be an important sacrifice to the God of the Moon in ancient China. Starting in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), mooncakes began to embody the meaning of family reunion. They used to be called family reunion cakes.”

How are mooncakes made?

Mooncakes consist of two components: the dough, which makes the crust, and the filling. Making mooncakes is a precise art. Each component is portioned into tiny morsels weighing approximately 20 to 25 grams before they are rolled, molded and baked.

The dough is usually made from flour, oil and water. Fillings are where cooks can get creative with mooncakes, which can be stuffed with pork, red bean paste, lotus seed paste or even contemporary fillings like ice cream, cheesecake and chocolate.

“There are different ways to make a mooncake, ” says pastry chef Lisa Chang, who is the business partner for restaurateur and James Beard Award finalist Peter Chang. “We bake ours and use three different sweet and savory fillings: Savory Pork, Sweet Red Bean and Sweet White Lotus Paste. We use [all-purpose] flour and a combination of vegetable oil and pork fat in our dough, but other variations include Hong Kong’s traditional use of dough with maltose added for a sweeter wrapper.”

The dough is prepared and rolled into rounded skins, ready to wrap the filling that has been formed into a ball. The dough is then spread around the balled filling to completely cover it and pressed into a special mooncake mold. Traditional mooncake molds often include an imprint of the Chinese characters for “harmony” or “longevity,” which decorates the surface of the mooncake. After they have been shaped, mooncakes are baked in the oven for 10 to 30 minutes.

Do mooncakes vary by region?

Mooncakes can look and taste different based on where they have been made.

“Cantonese mooncakes are the most widely recognized, with a tender, golden-brown crust, often including salted egg yolks. Beijing-style mooncakes have a thicker, more crumbly crust and usually have sweet fillings like red bean paste or hawthorn. Suzhou-style mooncakes are known for their flaky, layered pastry and savory fillings like pork or ham,” says Michelle Ng, owner of food tourism company Vancouver Foodie Tours that features an Authentic Asian Eats tour.

Mooncakes have also become a global sensation in recent years and have benefited from diasporic and transnational interpretations. Creative takes on mooncakes include the no-bake snow skin mooncakes made with mochi dough and custard filling, lava custard mooncakes and crystal jelly mooncakes, which are made with clear gelatin and colorful fruit pressed into a mooncake mold.