I’ve always thought of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival as the Moon Festival, for the special cakes that would appear just once yearly. This celebratory treat is filled with seemingly opposing flavors and textures — the solid yet yielding crust, the dense yet soft filling of bean paste, the savoriness of the egg yolk against the sweet — and one of those memory foods that brings back thoughts of childhood. I remember how they were displayed in their fluted paper nests and, once gently packed into pink bakery boxes, would be tied up with several rounds of red cotton string criss-crossing the top, ending in a definitive knot. To serve, the cakes would be cut up into doll-sized wedges, each with its own sliver of golden yolk, a nod to the harvest moon about to make its way across the night sky.

Mooncake: The Lost Art from Andrew Gooi on Vimeo.