Mooncake

Mooncake is a dense, small pastry with a thin baked crust wrapped around a sweet filling. It is the centrepiece of the Mid-Autumn Festival, cut into wedges and shared among family rather than eaten whole by one person.

What it really is

A thin, slightly springy dough is pressed by hand or moulded around a dense, sweet filling — traditionally lotus seed paste or red bean paste, sometimes with a whole salted egg yolk buried in the centre to represent the full moon the festival celebrates. Brushed with an egg wash before baking, the crust turns a deep golden brown and takes on the raised pattern pressed into it by the mould, while the filling inside stays firm enough to slice cleanly.

The filling is the whole point, not the crust. The crust is thin and mostly there to hold its shape; the dense, sweet paste inside — and whether it hides a salted egg yolk — is what a mooncake is actually judged on.

How it is served

• Cut into small wedges, since a whole mooncake is far too rich and dense for one portion.
• With tea, to cut through the richness of the filling.
• Around the Mid-Autumn Festival specifically, rarely offered year-round.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the wheat in the crust and the egg in the wash and any yolk filling.
• Say which filling is used, since lotus, red bean, five-kernel and egg-yolk versions are all common and genuinely different.
• Note the serving size expected, since guests unfamiliar with mooncake sometimes underestimate how rich a small piece is.