Wishlist Wednesday: Mooncakes

 The Mid-Autumn Festival is an important holiday and held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar when the moon is supposedly at its fullest.  It coincides with the autumnal equinox.  Traditionally on this day, family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon and celebrate by eating moon cakes together.

In Singapore, we just cut straight to the chase and call it the Mooncake Festival and it is one of my favorite memories growing up.  Mooncakes are a Chinese bakery item made of a thin pastry crust with a dense sweet filling.  It is usually cut and eaten in wedges, served with Chinese tea.

Sometimes, there is a salted duck egg yolk in the center to symbolize the full moon (I know I know it sounds weird)

Traditional mooncakes have an imprint on top consisting of the Chinese characters for longevity or harmony.  The more traditional fillings include lotus seed and red bean.

However, now there are a ton of other fancy variations of fillings out there which include pistachio, hazelnut, pandan, durian, chocolate, green tea, coffee, peanut, etc.  Here are some snowskin mooncakes with mango and avocado fillings

Snowskin mooncakes with strawberry and banana fillings

Green tea and cherry blossom filling

Foie gras and cheese, chocolate chips, caramel coffee and  sesame and white bean paste

And even Godiva, Starbucks, and Haagen Das got on board the mooncake frenzy

As a little kid I remember eating these little pig shaped versions found in these baskets

Fortunately for my homesickness, our local Chinese grocery store carries some mooncakes for the season so I'll be checking them out this week and chowing down on my favorite red bean version.  Happy Mooncake Festival!

Sources: wikipedia, google images and http://sparklette.net/food/mooncakes-remix-2009/