Mooncakes

Tomorrow is the Chinese Moon Festival. Traditionally, families make or buy mooncakes and then gather together and eat them under the full moon. This is the second biggest Chinese holiday. (The first being Chinese New Year, of course.)

A couple of weeks ago we bought some authentic Chinese moon cakes at an Asian grocery store. They looked beautiful, and came in a box with a beautiful Chinese woman on it. (We're saving the box for Maylie, although Kourtney, Mikyla and I all wanted it.) We came home, made tea and then sat down to taste our very first mooncakes. They tasted...well, let's just say you can't judge a mooncake by it's alluring appearance!

This is the box that our mooncakes came in.

I found this recipe for "Americanized" mooncakes online. I plan on making them tomorrow morning. Here is the recipe if anyone is interested:
Easy Chinese Moon Cakes








Ingredients:
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup salted butter
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup strawberry (or your favorite) jam (traditionally
red bean paste is used so if you want a more authentic
version, you can use a can of red bean paste instead of
the jam).

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine the butter, sugar and 1 egg yolk and stir.
3. Mix in the flour.
4. Form the dough into one large ball and wrap it in
plastic wrap.
5. Refrigerate dough for half an hour.
6. Unwrap the chilled dough and form small balls in the
palms of your hand.
7. Make a hole with your thumb in the center of each
mooncake and fill with about half a teaspoon of jam.
8. Brush each cake with the other beaten egg yolk and place on a cookie sheet.
9. Bake for about 20 minutes or just until the outside edges are slightly brown.


Here is a traditional mooncake...so lovely and golden. Deceiving, isn't it?
Maylie, we'll all be thinking about you tomorrow as we celebrate Chinese Moon Festival, and as we eat our mooncakes under the same moon that you are sleeping under somewhere in China. We hope and pray that we will get your referral soon!

Posted by Karissa