mooncakes

Mooncakes are filled pastries associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival. Judy Leung describes her family making them each year and distinguishes several styles: soft, patterned pastries with sweet fillings, flaky Su-style mooncakes, savoury meat-filled versions and newer snow-skin varieties. Red bean and lotus-seed pastes are among the fillings she discusses, with salted duck egg yolks optional in her red-bean preparation.^[1]

For that version, cooked adzuki beans are puréed and reduced with sugar, oil and maltose into a paste that holds its shape. The outer dough combines flour, golden syrup, oil and a food-grade alkaline solution. A thin portion of dough encloses the filling before the pastry is pressed in a patterned mould and baked. The moulded surface and dense filling belong to this particular style; flaky and snow-skin mooncakes have different outer layers.^[1]