Fillings of taro, yam, red bean or mung bean paste are added before it is deep-fried.įillings differ from region to region because mooncakes are a way to show off the best produce from each area. The pastry is made by laminating a water-based and oil-based dough into one another. Teochew mooncakes are also called thousand-layer mooncakes due to their appearance. These mooncakes are best shared and enjoyed with a pot of tea.Ī teochew, or thousand-layer mooncake, have a laminate pastry crust and fillings including taro, yam or mung bean paste. Some bakeries have also introduced half-sugar mooncakes (which are exactly what they sound like) because the biggest compliment any Chinese person can give about a sweet is that it is “not too sweet”. You’ll also see red bean paste, mung bean paste, sesame paste and a five-seed mix in some mooncakes, although they’re not as easy to find.

With the extreme-gifting trend and auspicious nature of all Chinese celebrations, some bakeries stuff up to four salted egg yolks into a single mooncake, because the more moons you have, the more plentiful the bounty for the receiver. They’re commonly filled with lotus seed paste and one or two salted yolks.

They’re the most recognised mooncake in Australia due to Hong Kong’s financial boom in the 1960s, when they became commercialised and a popular gift item. The square or lotus-shaped, dense mooncakes with the browned, chewy crust stamped with the name of the bakery you see in most Asian grocers are the Cantonese version.

Baked lotus-shaped mooncakes are the most widely available mooncakes in Australia.

2021 mooncake festival