The Guo Yuan-yi Pastry Museum is one of the most popular spots in Taipei for field trips. Students go there to learn how to make Chinese snacks according to traditional customs that celebrate births, weddings and holidays. "The founder of the museum wants to teach people that the historic store was not just old and traditional but imbued with a rich cultural heritage," Li Kun-tsung, the museum's manager, said Sept. 4. In addition to being a museum, it is also an active pastry business.
The Taipei-based bakery was established in 1867. As time went by, more bakeries sprang up in the industry and brought in new methods of baking. Nevertheless, the descendants of the past four generations tried hard to preserve the techniques passed down from their ancestors while creating innovative flavors.
Li said that with the Mid-Autumn Festival just around the corner, the museum arranged a series of activities for children and adults to participate in making moon cakes. The festival, also known as the Moon Festival, falls on the 15th of the eighth month in the lunar calendar and was traditionally a time for people to celebrate the end of harvest season. People often gathered with relatives and friends to eat moon cakes, also enjoying green tea or pomelo fruit. The moon was at its fullest during this time of the year.
According to Chinese folklore, rebels made the cakes for military purposes. They used moon cakes to pass secret messages by putting small pieces of paper into the cakes, which were then distributed to their comrades. This method of clandestine communication was used to launch a rebellion to overthrow the Chinese Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), made up of the Mongols. The successful campaign happened in the mid-autumn season, so people made the cakes at this time of year to commemorate the uprising.
During the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), a writer named Tian Ru-cheng recorded the custom of giving moon cakes in the book "More Sights in West Lake." "The fifteenth of the eighth month is called mid-autumn, and local people give friends moon cakes as presents to symbolize their reunion," he wrote. For this reason, moon cakes were also called union cakes or harvest cakes, used to celebrate this occasion.
While families gathered to appreciate the bright moon in the clear dark sky, the sweet snacks became a luxury and won the name of moon cakes. Circular, rectangular and even heart-shaped pastries were common. Usually the moon cakes had sweet stuffing inside the dough and were baked at a high temperature of around 200 degrees Celsius for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the size and condition of the oven. Since people developed the practice of making moon cakes a long time ago, there were several styles from different regions, according to Li. They could be divided into four major categories: Beijing, Suzhou, Taiwanese and Cantonese.
The Beijing moon cakes referred to the pastries from that city. They were distinguished by crispy skin and a small amount of stuffing inside. Made in a fashion similar to Chinese baked rolls, the amount of eggs and oil gave the cakes a stiff texture. The pastries from Suzhou were mixed with flour and oil and folded many times to make several thin layers of dough. After it was baked, the color turned white outside and the dough became flexible, with layers crispy enough to break.
Different from those two types of moon cakes, the dough of a traditional Taiwanese moon cake was made of flour, syrup and oil, without any folds. Having a hard texture like bread, people often added butter and eggs to soften the dough. "The best time to eat moon cakes is two or three days after they are baked," Li recommended, "because the fragrance of oil and moisture will be released to give a tender texture." The brown and shining color of the moon cakes looked like Cantonese-style moon cakes featuring thin skin and abundant stuffing.
The dough of Cantonese moon cakes was usually made of syrup and flour, without eggs and folds. Sesame oil or peanut oil could make the dough soft and smooth. Sheng Kee Bakery Co. Ltd. has been making Cantonese moon cakes since 1970. The bakery insisted on using high-quality ingredients, Glenda Kao, the owner, claimed Sept. 4.
The stuffing of the moon cakes came from a refined mash of beans, dates or fruit. To ensure quality, she imported these ingredients from various places, such as black jujube from the United States and lotus seeds from South Korea. Even though she put a lot of effort toward importing products from abroad, Kao said that the dough of the cake was the most important part. "Don't think that it is just a thin layer. No matter how you cut our moon cake, the skin stays attached to the stuffing without crumbling," she added.
Chen Ching-piao, the head baker at Sheng Kee bakery, said Sept. 4 that the secret to good moon cakes lay in the amount of sugar. The dough required enough sugar to wrap up the stuffing tightly. Otherwise, the water contained in it would evaporate in the oven and leave a space in the dough. He reached for the jujube paste to put it inside the dough and turned the dough counter-clockwise to seal the top. Before going into the oven, the pastry was placed in a wooden mold to imprint floral patterns onto it. After it was baked, Chen tapped the mold on the table, and a circular moon cake fell out. He said that brushing egg yolk on top could polish the surface.
The appearance of the moon cakes was important, so the mold was a major consideration in the baking process. Li said that since bakers had to rap the mold against the table to take out the moon cake, the hardness of the mold was crucial. "Formosan michelia is the best material for molds because it is hard and does not expand easily," he said.
Patterns were carved onto molds to decorate the pastry. According to Li, autumn flowers like chrysanthemum were popular designs. Auspicious symbols or characters, like that for longevity, were another common feature in moon cakes. More often than not, the store would also put its brand on the mold. At Sheng Kee, the name of the stuffing was marked on the mold so that customers could recognize the flavors quickly. Unfortunately, Li lamented that few people were making the molds nowadays and the traditional art was likely to disappear.
A good moon cake was the product of a deep understanding of ingredients and constant practice with proper tools. Chen is the most senior baker in the store, having started working as an apprentice when he was 13 years old.
"There are no particular skills for making moon cakes. The techniques come from accumulated experience and practice," he said. Chen led a group of junior bakers busy working in the same kitchen. Several rolled up the dough while others divided the stuffing into small portions. Their jokes and laughter filled the room, along with the music from a radio. As far as Chen was concerned, the bakery was like a family to him. While he was at work making moon cakes, he was also celebrating the holiday with his family in Sheng Kee.
Write to Sandra Shih at sandrashih@mail.gio.gov.tw