The Mooncake festival is coming closer day by day and therefore the Mooncake productions are in full swing. As a person with a big sweet tooth, I could not let this chance pass and went out to search for someone that can show me how to make this conventional Chinese dessert.  After a short search, I was lucky to find a true Master from HongKong to show me how to make the most traditional form of Chinese Mooncakes: “HongKongnese puff pastry skin Mooncakes”. My Master for the Mooncake lesson was Master Li and surprisingly young for a master. When I saw him starting his work I quickly realized though that it must have been a lot of Mooncakes that went through this man’s hands. As a western chef I am always under the impression that pastry and baking is not the biggest strength of Chinese chefs. A scale and precise measuring of ingredients was till now something I felt completely absent from Chinese kitchens. Master Li though proof me that also Chinese pastry chefs must know how to read the digits on the scale. A gram too little or too much was not acceptable to him and there was no sign of the typical Chinese “a little bit of this and a little bit of that”. For all the readers that might not know: The traditional Hong Kong style Mooncake is made of a crunchy, puff pastry similar skin filled with Lotus seed paste and a salty duck egg yolk in the heart of the Mooncake. There are several things here that did surprise me and might surprise other western readers: In Chinese puff pastry is called “su pi” which can refer to different kinds of puff pastry similar doughs, which means they might not exactly represent what Europeans define as “puff pastry”. The dough made for this Mooncake consists of two different dough recipes which are folded a few times to build several layers of dough which then end up being “puffed”. The two doughs are made simply from flour, water, a touch of honey and…how could it be different in China…pure pork fat. Traditional European puff pastry follows slightly different criteria with a dough made from only flour, water and butter (previously also lard was used, nowadays butter is the absolute standard). The dough is then rolled out and folded layer by layer between 70 to 700 times, depending on recipe and usage.  The lotus plant might be one of the most symbolic plants in Chinese history. But not only in terms of symbolism it is important, also in terms of food culture it is from highest significance. From it’s root to it’s seeds it finds a lot of use in Chinese cooking. Specially the seeds are widely used in Asian dessert and so as well in this HongKongnese style Mooncake. In Europe Lotus seeds are a rare object not often seen. Most of my friends, I am sure to say, would not even recognize it when looking at it. The flavor though is great and fits the western people’s taste - smooth, slightly sweet and nutty. These are the attributes that give real depth to the Mooncake’s well balanced flavor. Preserving eggs has not been a strength of European chefs and is further not a practice widely known to the western world. The Chinese though have pterfectionlized it for many years. The salty duck egg has a long history in China and finds many uses in all sort of dishes, like the traditional HongKong style Mooncake. It is not everyone’s taste but personally I have to admit that I do like the slightly salty flavor mixed with the sweet lotus seed paste and the honey puff pastry skin. After a few hours of rolling fillings, doughs and ready-to-bake Mooncakes I was quite satisfied with the making of my first Chinese dessert. Freshly out of the oven they tasted even better than from the box…with this great experience made by myself I can only advise everyone to try baking one round of his/her own hand made Mooncake. Enjoy them yourself straight from the oven or just give them to a friend…a true gift from heart for Mooncake festival. #月饼 #学中餐 #甜点