Mooncakes from heaven: Hong Kong's sweet obsession

HONG KONG - It is one of Hong Kong's most treasured food traditions - the buying, giving and eating of mooncakes to mark Mid-Autumn Festival, which is celebrated by Chinese communities around the world next month.

Bakeries and supermarkets are already packed with boxes of the dense pastries, traditionally filled with a heavy, sweet concoction of lotus seeds and egg yolks.

But not all mooncakes are created equal.

Picky customers will line up outside the most popular stores to ensure they bag their favorite brand.

Mooncakes by chef Yip Wing-wah of Hong Kong's famous colonial-era Peninsula Hotel are among the most in demand - and the priciest.

Boxes of eight of his "Spring-Moon mini egg-custard mooncakes" cost HK$520($66) and are only available in a three-day preorder online sale, to avoid previous unseemly lines at the hotel.

This year's sale took place in August and sold out weeks ahead of the festival.

Yip invented what has become his signature mooncake 30 years ago, when he worked as a dim sum chef at the hotel's Spring Moon restaurant.

It was inspired by gooey egg custard buns, a classic dim sum dish, and is smaller and lighter than traditional mooncakes, although it still packs a sugary, buttery punch.

"I have an emotional attachment to it. I really do. Because I would never have guessed that it would grow more popular every year," says the 65-year-old, who started to work in Hong Kong restaurant kitchens at age 13.

Deep in the Peninsula's basement, Yip kneads golden, elastic dough to show how he and his team will make this year's new lychee-flavored spin on his original classic.

He rolls it out into lengths and plucks off small pieces. He flattens them between his hands before using them to encase sweet filling.

Each dough ball is then pressed individually into a mooncake-shaped hole in a heavy wooden holder, which Yip bangs three times on a worktop to pop out a perfect pastry.

Those who get hold of a box will share them with friends, family and business associates as part of the festival, which is the second largest in Hong Kong after Lunar New Year.

The legend behind it revolves around a beautiful woman called Chang E, who drank an elixir of immortality to keep it out of the hands of her husband's rival.

It caused her to ascend to the moon, leaving her distraught husband on Earth. He took her favorite foods to an altar and offered them as a sacrifice to her - a ritual then adopted by local people.

"Mid-Autumn Festival is about coming together as a family to eat mooncakes and fruit, and to admire the moon," 40-year-old Guangdong province native Lam Mei Yu says, biting into one on Hong Kong's harbor front.

Yip vows to continue to bake them as long as he is able.

"The more I make, the happier I am," he says.

Agence France - presse