Mooncakes Were a Significant Part of My Childhood — Here's How to Make Them

If you've been scouring the interwebs high and low for an authentic mooncake recipe that is actually written by an Asian, look no further, because I'm here to share all the details. As someone who's been eating mooncakes since childhood, I've learned that while the store-bought kind is still pretty delicious, nothing quite compares to the homemade version. And luckily enough, this recipe isn't one where you'll need a kitchen table full of Asian aunties in order to pull it off. Mooncakes are simple once you get the hang of them and only need 15 minutes in the oven, and as long as you have a mooncake mold, the process is basically foolproof.

There are only two main components to mooncakes: filling and dough. This recipe is for a sweet mooncake which uses mung beans and matcha, but you can also go the savory route with salted egg yolk, or make it Suzhou style with pork. Black sesame and red-bean paste are also popular, but the ingredients might be hard to find. The sweet or savory filling gets wrapped up in the dough, which consists of a basic combination of flour, sugar syrup, vegetable oil, and egg, then it's pressed in a mooncake mold and baked.

The resulting pastry is almost too pretty to eat, but definitely tastes as good as it looks. The outer crust is crumbly yet dense while the filling is sweet and sticky, and I might be a little biased, but the flavors and textures just complement each other so well. Whether you're actually celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival or just craving a sweet treat on a random Tuesday, you can't go wrong with these mooncakes.