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No stranger, mooncakes are pretty common these days but still remain mostly available when Mid-Autumn Festival approaches. Commercially, we only see the typical Chinese mooncakes being sold in malls and markets. Not many of us, especially the younger generations are aware of the different types of mooncakes. So here goes…

Typical Chinese mooncakes

• Round
• Around 10cm in diameter and 4-5 cm in thickness
• Mostly consist of a thin skin layer wrapping around a sweet, dense filling.

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Most used fillings

• Lotus seed paste – Made from dried lotus seeds and is considered the most delicious and luxurious filling for mooncakes. 
• Five kernel – Consist of 5 types of nuts and seeds, mostly include walnuts, pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds, peanuts, sesame seeds and almonds.
• Sweet bean paste – Most common to be red bean paste and while the other choice would be black bean paste.
• Egg yolk – A whole salted egg yolk placed in the centre of a mooncake symbolises the full moon.
• Jujube paste – Sweet paste made from ripe fruits of the jujube plant (dates).

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Variety of traditional mooncakes according to regions

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• Cantonese-style – Originated from South China’s Guangdong Province that uses mostly lotus seed paste, melon seed paste, ham, chicken, duck, roast pork, mushrooms and egg yolks as fillings. Interestingly, they are known to be sweet.

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• Suzhou-style  – Or Su-style for short existed more than a thousand years ago. Well known throughout China for their soft layers of flaky dough and generous portion of sugar and lard, making it available in sweet or savoury.
• Beijing-style – Originated from Beijing and Tianjian, this meticulously decorated mooncake comes two variants: light, foamy dough and flaky, white dough. 
• Chaoshan (teochew)-style – They have a distinct crust and usually larger than Su-style mooncakes with common fillings of mung bean paste and black bean potato paste.
• Ningbo-style – These are usually spicy and salty, and only available in East China’s Zhejiang province.

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The types of modern mooncakes

• Snowy mooncakes – These non-baked, chilled desserts appeared in the early 1980s. They usually comes in two types of crust: Glutinous rice (snowskin mooncake) with a similar texture to mochi, and a jelly crust usually made from agar, gelatin or konjac with wide variety of fruit flavourings.
• Ice-cream mooncakes – Various ice-cream fillings while having Belgian white, milk or dark chocolate as crust.

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• Cute mooncakes – basically a typical mooncake crust and fillings but made into adorable shapes and designs.

Editor JQ Lee talks and writes for a living. That's because she loves sharing interesting things to the world. With a Degree in Communication and Media Management, this petite Gen-Y will not stop chasing her passion in writing and broadcasting. She dreams to host a travel show and be a radio announcer someday, hopefully soon. Stalk this wacky fair Asian girl at www.jqtalks.com, Instagram and Twitter (@jqleejq)