Chinese Equinox Celebrations-Mooncake festival.

Chinese Equinox Celebrations-Mooncake festival.

In China, Taiwan and Vietnam the equinox/ Mabon is celebrated with the Moon festival also known as Mooncake festival or Zhongqui Festival. This festival honours Chang’e the lunar Goddess and it commemorates the only day in the year that she can visit her husband Houyi who lives on the sun. Because of this it is seen as a celebration of the balance of yin and yang. Traditions associated with the Mooncake festival include eating mooncakes(not surprisingly!) lighting lanterns, matchmaking, and Fire Dragon Dances. Farmers celebrate the end of the fall harvesting season on this date in the same way as we celebrate the harvest at Mabon.

Chinese people believe a full moon is a symbol of peace, prosperity, and family reunion. The festival is also therefore known as ‘ the day of re-union’. It has been compared to the Chinese equivalent of the American tradition of thanksgiving. At the Mooncake festival the moon is supposed to be the brightest and fullest.

Traditional mooncakes

I searched around for mooncake recipes for you but a lot of them were very complicated using ingredients that I think would be very hard to find like lotus paste so I have gone for these two. The first one is nice and easy and the children will enjoy making. The second is maybe a bit more challenging but will probably be a bit more authentic.

Enjoy making these and sharing with family and friends at Mabon. As you make them think of the energy of the bright Mabon moon being stirred into the mixture. You can then share that wonderful Mabon moon energy with family and friends at your Mabon feast. Blessings, Alison

Easy Mooncakes

Easy mooncakes

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sugar

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup salted butter

1 cup all-purpose flour

 1 cup strawberry (or your favorite) jam (traditionally red bean paste is used so if you want a more authentic version, you can use a can of red bean paste instead of the jam).

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Combine the butter, sugar and 1 egg yolk and stir.

Mix in the flour.

Form the dough into one large ball and wrap it in plastic wrap.

Refrigerate dough for half an hour.

Unwrap the chilled dough and form small balls in the palms of your hand.

Make a hole with your thumb  in the center of each mooncake and fill with about half a teaspoon of jam.

Brush each cake with the other beaten egg yolk and place on a cookie sheet.  (We didn't have a brush to do this, so skipped the brushing step)

Bake for about 20 minutes or just until the outside edges are slightly brown.

Recipe from http://www.dltk-holidays.com/china/easy_chinese_mooncakes.htm 

Sweet Potato Mooncakes

You will need a special mould to make these look like the ones in the picture but I'm sure you could just fashion them into simple rolls or triangle shapes with the filling in the middle, time to get creative!

ingredients:

filling

5 lbs sweet potatoes
1.5 stick butter, at room temperature
400 grams granulated sugar
1 tbsp freshly ground cinnamon
1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
1 tsp kosher salt

dough

600 grams brown sugar
2 c water
130 grams oil
1850 grams ap flour
12 egg yolks
3 tbsp freshly grated ginger

directions:

sweet potato filling

1. roast sweet potatoes until they are tender and can be easily pierced
with knife.
2. peel and discard skins and mash potatoes.
3. mix together butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt. add to
mashed sweet potatoes. let cool.

dough

1. combine brown sugar and water in a pot and cook over medium heat
until sugar dissolves. cool and transfer to standing mixer with whisk
attachment.
2. add oil and ginger, and egg yolks.
3. slowly add flour. At some point, the dough will be too stiff for the whisk
attachment. replace with a paddle attachment and continue to add the
rest of the flour.
4. transfer dough to a worktable, for rolling.

assembly

1. form filling into balls. the size will depend on the size of your
mooncake mold.
2. take a bit of dough and roll out until it forms a sheet about 1/8 inch
thick.
3. Enrobe the filling with the dough. pinch the seams to seal. Place on
silpat-lined baking sheets.

baking

1. pre-heat oven to 350.
2. spray mooncakes with some water, then apply an eggwash for a glossy
sheen afterwards
3. bake for 15 mins.
4. spray mooncakes again. Turn down oven to 300 and bake until crust is
golden.

Diep from Good Girl Dinette http://www.theravenouscouple.com/2012/09/banh-trung-thu-moon-cakes.html