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Lisa Cam

Take a bite out of history with our exclusive series on the delicious ingredients, dishes and techniques behind the unique tastes of Hong Kong.
Snow skin, durian, ice cream, even Chinese ham – no matter what your preference, there is likely a mooncake out there for you.
For ancient China’s agrarian society, the Mid-Autumn Festival was a celebration of a successful harvest. Today, it is a day where families gather and mooncakes are given to one’s nearest and dearest – as well as to business partners and corporate clients.
Traditionally eaten relatively fresh, mooncakes are big business. In 2023, Hong Kong charity Food Grace estimated that households in Hong Kong planned to buy, on average, 1.8 boxes of mooncakes; that amounts to about five million boxes a year.
This has led to the mass manufacturing of the seasonal treats, some of them sourced from outside Hong Kong to meet demand.

Mooncakes have not always been as affordable as they are today. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the standard of living of the average Hong Kong family was relatively low, payment plans called mooncake clubs were set up so that people could buy them.
Bakeries offered systems through which people would pay off their purchases little by little over the course of a year. This helped vendors control their inventory, especially their stocks of the expensive salted egg yolk used in mooncakes along with lotus seed paste.
“Bakeries would have the mooncakes ready for pickup by the first day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar,” says KC Koo, owner of Hong Kong food company Fancook. “Then you had to wait until around the 15th to eat it for what we call the ‘aroma cycle’ to work.
“It’s basically to give time for the oil in the salted egg yolk to seep through the entire mooncake, giving the skin the same bite and texture as the lotus seed filling.”
Jayson Tang, executive chef of Chinese cuisine at the JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong, is one of those who still believes that mooncakes should be eaten fresh.

This year, hotel’s the Michelin-star Man Ho Chinese Restaurant sells mooncakes freshly baked on the premises in four flavours. “We offer flavours made with traditional Chinese ingredients but with a twist, like winter melon paired with macadamia nut or taro paste with a chocolate cookie crust,” Tang says.
“Many mooncakes are made for gifting and have a much longer shelf life compared to how mooncakes were eaten [back then]. There are also many versions of mooncakes out there that aren’t mooncakes, they’re just ice cream or chocolates.
“I wanted our patrons to experience what it’s like to eat mooncakes fresh out of the oven. The flavours are very different.”
I insist on making it the traditional way. If I can’t find a baker who will take my commission, the nostalgic flavour of mooncakes made with just lotus seeds will cease to exist.
KC Koo, owner of Fancook
To make a mooncake sounds easy enough – lotus seeds (soaked, boiled overnight and mashed) are mixed with mung bean paste, cornflour and sugar. Salted egg yolks are folded into the resulting paste, which is wrapped in a pastry dough, then pressed into a cake mould before being baked.
However, getting the consistency of the paste and dough right is a skill that comes with experience and requires intuition.
“I have to adjust my recipe each year,” says Koo, who sells a line of mooncakes containing salted egg yolk with yellow lotus paste. “The weather and the ingredients vary each year, so I have to conduct a taste test each year.”

Although Koo sources the ingredients and decides on the recipe, he commissions a Chinese baker to make the mooncakes for him and his clients. “I sell about a thousand mooncakes a year; we’re a very small-batch producer,” he says.
Koo started selling mooncakes at Fancook because he found it difficult to buy yellow lotus paste mooncakes in Hong Kong. “That’s the only flavour my dad eats. At the beginning, I only pooled orders from a few friends who wanted to eat gourmet mooncakes,” he says.
Koo explains that the difference between white and yellow lotus seed paste is the level of doneness. The yellow paste has started to caramelise. “To be able to gauge the moment it’s ready and to take the paste off the heat without it burning is a sign of the baker’s skill,” he says.
He points out that commercial manufacturers do not make mooncakes with 100 per cent lotus seed in their filling. “A lot of manufacturers use fillers like tapioca flour or white bean and in some, it’s not even lotus seed in the filling any more.”
Sourcing ingredients for mooncakes in Hong Kong has become a challenge. “Finding quality egg yolks for small-batch production is hard, as the best ingredients usually go to big producers like [catering group] Maxim’s,” Koo says. “It’s also almost impossible to find enough lotus seeds grown locally.”

Vivian Leung, a member of Locofarms, a social enterprise that champions ingredients grown in Hong Kong, agrees with Koo.
“We were lucky enough to find a farmer in Lai Chi Wo village with a lotus pond,” she says. “However, because of the huge amount of rainwater due to climate change, we couldn’t determine whether he could provide us with enough lotus seeds, even for our small-batch production.”
Locofarms produced 250 boxes of mooncakes for this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival.
Asked if the tradition of mooncake making is under threat of disappearing, Koo says it is not a matter of if, but when. “The ingredients are getting harder and harder to source each year and it’s getting more expensive.
“While I insist on making it the traditional way, if I can’t find a baker who will take my commission, the nostalgic flavour of mooncakes made with just lotus seeds – like the ones I used to eat when I was a child – will cease to exist.”
Leung is more optimistic about the future of mooncakes, but also believes that tastes are changing.
“I don’t think the tradition of eating mooncakes with family during the Mid-Autumn Festival will ever go away, but the trend of mooncakes has veered away from the classic salted egg yolk and lotus seed paste,” she says.
“I think the people who prefer the classic type might become less and less – but it won’t disappear completely.”


The bakers keeping traditional mooncake making alive in Hong Kong for Mid-Autumn Festival

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Food and Drinks

Vivian Leung prepares to bake mooncakes made the traditional way using ingredients sourced in Hong Kong for charity Locofarms. Photo: Locofarms

KC Koo is the owner of Hong Kong food company Fancook. He sells a line of mooncakes containing salted egg yolk with yellow lotus paste. Photo: SCMP

The Michelin-star Man Ho Chinese Restaurant in Hong Kong sells freshly baked mooncakes. Photo: Man Ho Chinese Restaurant

A salted egg yolk and yellow lotus paste mooncake. Photo: Fan Cook

Vivian Leung making mooncakes. Locofarms produced 250 boxes of mooncakes for this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival. Photo: Locofarms

Pistachio cream cheese? Hong Kong mooncake makers hit and miss in redefining seasonal treat

Photo: Connor Mycroft

An elderly customer checks out mooncakes on offer at Kwan Hong Bakery in Sham Shui Po ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Photo: Connor Mycroft

Second-generation operator Charles Ng says he has been experimenting with new flavours including lunch meat, taro and abalone. Photo: Connor Mycroft

Second-generation Kee Chui Cake Shop operator William Cheung says mooncake sales are lower in comparison with last year. Photo: Connor Mycroft

How Teochew mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival are a reminder of migration in Asia

Teochew mooncakes. A popular Mid-Autumn Festival treat, they were brought to Hong Kong, along with other food items and their dialect, by Teochew (Chiu Chow) people from southeast China. Photo: Getty Images

People sample mooncakes at a Hong Kong Mid-Autumn Festival food event. Photo: David Wong

Taksin the Great, who ruled Siam – modern-day Thailand – in the 18th century, was of Teochew descent. Photo: Getty Images

Tycoon Li Ka-shing is the most famous member of Hong Kong’s Teochew community. Photo: AFP

How the Jade Rabbit became part of Mid-Autumn Festival traditions in China, Japan and more

The Jade Rabbit’s association with the moon has seen it become a part of Mid-Autumn Festival traditions in China. Photo: Shutterstock

The Jade Rabbit’s association with the moon has seen it become a part of Mid-Autumn Festival traditions in China, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries. Photo: Shutterstock

Two people take a selfie in front of a giant white rabbit lantern at Tai Kiu Market in Yuen Long, Hong Kong, ahead of Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations, on September 12, 2021. Photo: Felix Wong

A giant inflatable white rabbit leans against a blue moon on the Cheung Sha Wan Promenade in Hong Kong on September 3, 2024. Photo: Eugene Lee

A giant inflatable rabbit is displayed at Lake Egret Nature Park in Tai Po Kau, Hong Kong, on September 12, 2022. Photo: Sam Tsang

Why Hong Kong’s fire dragon dances, part of Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations, are so vital

Members of the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance team spin balls of joss sticks as the “dragon” winds through Tai Hang on September 29, 2023. Photo: AFP

Members of the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance team spin balls of joss sticks as the “dragon” winds through Tai Hang, Hong Kong, during Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations on September 29, 2023. Such events are vital in preserving the city’s intangible cultural heritage, including its language traditions. Photo: AFP

Crowds watch the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance on September 28, 2023. Photo: Sam Tsang

The Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance has its origins in the 1880 plague in Tai Hang. Photo: Sam Tsang

What is Mid-Autumn Festival and why do Chinese families celebrate it?

A boy with a lantern outside the Blue House in Wan Chai on September 9, 2024. Photo: Sam Tsang

Lifestyle

Food & Drink

A treat families once took a year to pay for, mooncakes of every flavour are ubiquitous now. Some are still made fresh the old-fashioned way


A treat families once took a year to pay for, mooncakes of every flavour are ubiquitous now. Some are still made fresh the old-fashioned way.


Mid-Autumn Festival

Chinese cuisine

Chinese culture