Mooncakes

Mooncakes are given this week to celebrate the harvest/moon/fall festival. Mooncakes are pastries that traditionally have a thick filling made from lotus seed paste and/or may contain a whole egg yolk that represents the moon. The top of the mooncakes are imprinted with Chinese characters that represent everything from longevity to harmony to the name of the bakery. They are a labor-intensive product, and can be quite expensive.

They are usually eaten in small wedges and served with Chinese tea. OR if are my oldest daughter, you eat a whole mooncake off the counter when no one is looking.

Enter the 21st century - you can now get mooncakes in a variety of flavors with different fillings while the pastry itself can be made of many different ingredients, including gelatin.

I am a sucker for beautiful packaging, and the little red boxes that hold each mooncake are darling, but when you see an entire store or booth set up with hundreds of these boxes, it is amazing.

The first two photos are mine, but I took the rest off of Google images.