The Many Mooncakes You Can Give To Your Family

With the Mooncake Festival fastly approaching, mooncakes are taking the spotlight as the delicacy of choice for gatherings as they’re the food that the festival itself is named after. Well, excluding the name Mid-Autumn Festival, of course. Mooncakes, also called Yue Bing, are a type of Chinese cake that can be filled with sweet or savory tasting ingredients. A typical cake that’s eaten with tea to balance out the sweet or savory taste with its bitterness, they’re also eaten while enjoying the breezing wind and bright moon of the Mooncake Festival. With the significance of mooncakes on the festival, it’s always a good idea to buy or make some to be given as gifts for the well-known family gathering and family dinner that the Mooncake Festival is known for. But knowing that mooncakes have closely been associated with the Mooncake Festival for years, there’s bound to be many types of mooncakes out there. So, what type of mooncakes are out there that you can get? This article will take a brief look into the many types of mooncakes you can get and give out to your family members as a gift!
 

1. Lotus Seed Mooncake
   
   Lotus seed mooncakes are very common to find during the Mooncake Festival | Credit: SupChina
   
   This is actually the traditional and the most popular filling for a mooncake. It’s essentially a mooncake filled with white lotus seed paste, which, coming from the name, it’s made from lotus seeds with their bitter green center removed. Using some sugar and honey, the lotus seed that was once bitter due to the center now tastes very sweet, making this the most common mooncake type you can find at bakeries.
    
2. Red Beans Mooncake
   
   Red bean mooncakes are as common as lotus seed mooncakes | Credit: Sugarbear Bakes
   
   Another traditional and common filling for a mooncake is red beans, more specifically, adzuki beans. These adzuki beans can be found outside of mooncakes as well, such as soups and bread, but when it comes to mooncakes, they taste very sweet and are able to fill out the sheel of the mooncake so that it looks more appealing to eat. Similar to the lotus seed mooncake, it’s also common to find red bean mooncakes at bakeries and Asian grocery stores.
    
3. Green Tea Mooncake
   
   Green tea mooncakes are also popular but different from the traditionally made mooncakes | Credit: Kuali
   
   Even though mooncakes are generally eaten with a side of tea, it doesn’t mean that mooncakes can’t have some tea-flavoring in them as well. There are two versions of these mooncakes; one is where the outer dough of the mooncake is combined with green tea, giving it a green color, and the other one is where the filling contains some bean paste and green tea.
    
4. The Snow Skin Mooncake
   
   Snow Skin Mooncakes look like they’re covered in snow | Credit: A Sweet Pantry
   
   This one is similar to green tea mooncakes as Snow Skin mooncakes also contain green tea on the dough, but with a twist; they’re not baked! Instead, these mooncakes are cooled and typically filled with ice cream, mochi, or custard. The Snow Skin name is taken from how the top of the mooncake is dusted with cornstarch, giving it the illusion that it’s covered in snow.
    
5. Salted Egg Mooncake
   
   Salted egg mooncakes are the savory version of mooncakes | Credit: Chinosity
   
   This one’s the savory-flavored mooncake as the salted egg, which is an egg cured in the shell, gives out a very strong umami flavor. Usually, the salted eggs that are used for this type of mooncake are duck eggs, though chicken eggs are sometimes used but differ in taste.
    

And that’s some of the mooncake types you can give out to your family members as a gift! If you’re looking for help in creating a gift box filled with delicious mooncakes for your family members, feel free to reach out to us!