Mooncakes that You Have Never Tried Before

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When in Rome, do as the Romans do. How can you celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival without a bite of mooncakes?

Pickled Chinese cabbage and frog, cheese and shrimp, pork meat stuffing with abalone are all fillings among most unexpected and adventurous flavors of mooncakes available this Mid-Autumn Festival.

Over the years, mooncake flavors have evolved from the traditionally salted egg yolk and red bean paste to mooncakes with incredible combo flavor.

It’s just been half a year since Chinese Tomb-Sweeping Day (April) went by, the absolute weird-flavor mooncakes have already stolen the thunder of our long beloved snow skin mooncakes. Here are the top ten weirdest mooncake flavors tested on sohu.com this year.

Pickled Chinese cabbage 

and frog mooncake

The weirdest mooncake flavor goes to pickled Chinese cabbage and frog flavor. Break it apart and out pops a large piece of frog meat.  With a whole frog leg in each cake and the bone-removing treatment, you don’t have to worry about eating the mooncake but spitting out the bones. 

Customers found after tasting and sniffing disappointments, the taste of this mooncake was not as tender as it looked. Instead, it tastes really dry like a piece of wood and there was no pickled-like flavor inside.

Abalone with stuffed meat mooncake

Abalone, one of the most popular dishes in China, has finally been made into a mooncake. At a standard price for a mooncake, you can eat the whole piece of good quality seafood.

Not to mention it actually keeps the chewy feature of an abalone, though not as much juicy as a real abalone.

Peixi (bamboo) mooncake

Peixi, as the traditional food of Lin'an District, Hangzhou City in east China's Zhejiang Province, is a kind of young bamboo shoots, named dried Tianmu bamboo. Dried Tianmu bamboo has been enjoyed throughout China, the exquisite taste of absolutely fresh and crisp texture made it one of the best among other bamboos.

With demanding diners throughout the country, dried Tianmu bamboo has been embraced by the mooncake industry.

Standing out from the other mooncakes, this freshly baked mooncake wins over other mooncakes by its intense appetizing smell. Break it apart, you will find stuffed fresh meat with crunchy bamboo bites, making each bite a heavenly experience.

Cheese and crayfish mooncake 

Before Mid-Autumn Festival, the cheese and crayfish filling mooncake went viral online, making the most craved mooncake by Chinese people among other options.

Classic spicy-crayfish-dish flavor with a seal of a crayfish shape on top, this mooncake is not just full of spiciness and rich cheesy taste but a bit surprise of its unexpected combination.

Crab and shrimp meat mooncake

Crab and shrimp meat mooncake use real meat from the deep sea as it claims. Each mooncake is infused with a whole shrimp and a rich soup made with crab and shrimp meat, making each bite a juicy adventure.

Matsutake (mushroom) mooncake 

Choosing from luxurious mooncake hampers loaded with delicious goodies, matsutake mooncake includes real king matsutake mushrooms and a crispy skin. Matsutake mushrooms offer a unique smell making it an irresistible delight.

Australian wagyu beef mooncake 

This freshly baked Australian wagyu beef mooncake offers the perfect beef variety to any combination of flavor and aroma to suit people’s appetite.

Durian snowskin mooncake

Among other salty options, this sweet treat surely captured the heart of the sweet lovers. The durian snowskin mooncakes are chock-full with fresh durian pulp. With soft snowskin and pulpy and creamy filling, there's really no denying a great durian mooncake.

Soft-centered coconut milk mooncake 

While traditional mooncake offers a solid stuffing in the center, the soft-centered coconut milk mooncake enriched our options with a modern culinary twist. The mooncake is filled with creamy condensed milk and fragrant Thai coconut milk wrapped in salted egg yolk, making it a rich coconut heaven.

Icy birdnest mooncake 

The luxurious Bird's Nest mooncake has a tangy sweet filling with premium bird's nest in its core, wrapped in delicate snow skin. The low sugar white lotus paste guarantees 1-2 grams real birdnest in each mooncake, a truly luxurious morsel which is destined be a big hit with the ladies. 

While enjoying the delicacy which usually comes with various fillings including red date paste, egg yolk, five-kernels and even meat, people may worry about too much intake of sugar and calories. 

Now, here’s an alternative – vegetarian mooncakes are becoming more and more popular among Chinese people.

Among the growing variety of vegetarian mooncakes available for the festival, the five-kernel mooncake is surely the most traditional and classic example.

Official standards on mooncakes revealed in December 2015 state that for Cantonese-style mooncakes, the five kernels are walnuts, almonds, olive kernels, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. 

However in reality, especially when making mooncakes at home, people may not strictly follow the standard but use different kinds of nuts, and even more than five, giving it another name – “mixed-nuts mooncakes”. 

Images: cgtn

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