I decided to call it Mooncakes as it is much more than just a delicious pastry, but it is a symbol of tradition, intricate craftmanship, and quality. Every year approaching to the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration, our bakery becomes a beehive of activities and aromas of freshly baked mooncakes. Let us take you behind the scene and show how our celebrated mooncakes are made from preparing the raw materials to the final gift wrapping.  

It is the process of choosing only the best and freshest produce for food preparation.

Indeed, any good recipe for mooncakes begins with fine and quality ingredients. Our bakers procure the finest cuts of salted egg yolks, lotus seed and red bean paste, golden syrup, premium chocolates and fruits used in our snowskin moscow mule as well as the finest jasmine tea leaves. What we do not add excess sugar and allow the natural taste from the ingredients to dominate. Every ingredient has to face the tests of our quality control department to ensure high quality and nice smell of products. The lotus paste smells sweet and has rounded seeds on view. The salted egg yolks are also checked for their bright orange color and moderate salting to match the sweetness of the pastry shell. 

Kneading and Handling the Dough with Care  

The ingredients used include flour, golden syrup, baking powder and oil and it may look easy but getting the right consistent mix requires the right touch and our bakers therefore mix the mooncake dough in small portions by hand. No electric mixers here! It is vital to apply the substance to the extent that it is lubricated without being greasy or dry. It has to be reminded that years of practice helps them dictates when the consistency is perfect for molding. Before the dough gets to rest, the intending bakery name is imprinted at the center of the dough to show who made this specialty.  

Shaping Features Precision  

Have you ever seen those delicate and detailed floral engravings and Chinese characters on the mooncakes that are so gorgeous that one hesitates to take a bite of them? They are all handmade from wooden blocks with impressions that have been in use for 30 years. Each mold is then worked gently by professionals who fill it with the brown dough or snowskin before slowly tapping it out. This requires muscle memory and focus for the details to come out perfectly as desired each time. Some bakeries use plastic molds that restrict the pattern, but the wooden molds have provided us with excellent traditional patterns. 

Taste – The Most Important Ingredient

However, before you get to see a mooncake, we first test it – the ultimate teller of quality, taste! After that the cakes are molded and stamped, they are forwarded to our master taster. As professionals with a refined pallet, they taste from each batch to establish quality. It should also complement the saltiness of the egg yolk or the robust flavor of lotus paste. It is not too oily as well as not too dry. They only get packaged once all of the aforementioned steps have already been completed. Employees themselves look forward to getting back to their homes and try out some of these munching treats.

Into the Oven: Keeping up with Baking Perfection 

In our ovens, circulation heat, more than 100 moon cakes at a time, is baked, the heat bakes gently on all sides. Bakers make sure that they interchange these sheets well and observe the changes carefully. The heat should be controlled and adjusted to avoid making them rubbery and the time should be perfect to ensure they rise to their correct sizes. This is easy to see when coming from decades of production where one gets an intuitive feel when each batch is ready. When perfectly cooked to a nice golden brown, out they come from the ovens – now risen into the perfect domes with crackled tops that invite you to want to look at them. 

The reality of being a Snowskin beauty is that one must take extra care.

Our snowskin mooncakes are more labor-intensive compared to baked ones; in fact, here they are made fully by hand. First of all, if the snowskin dough is to be made, one has to spend considerable effort in mixing water, tapioca, and wheat starch. These are then combined and incorporated into a homogenized and well developed dough with the palms of the hands without over manhandling. They knead and sprinkle the right measured portion of cornstarch to make the rolled out skin smooth, fine, neither hard nor tacky. Show master filling pipe beautiful patterns in accordance with Chinese symbols associated with blessings, prosperity and happiness. Each one embraces layers of tropical fruit, velvety ganache or a rich roasted chestnut filling. Each is placed into the chiller to set the shape before the final baking process takes place.

The emphasis is made on the use of vivid colors and outstanding decorating.

The question of course is, what would an ornate box of mooncakes be without nice colours and decorations that would remind everyone of the harvest festival? Moreover, our salted egg yolks come with an added gloss of color and glittering powder. Garnishing our snowskin varieties with customized edible prints, the Gardens of Jade and Fields of Gold are but two of our creations with names inspired by such designs. While viewing its aesthetics, the dried fruit coating on our durian and Earl Grey flavored snowskins provide textural differences. All the decorative elements enhance the attractive shades of food. Yet, we do not employ synthetic colors – nature's provision in the form of fruits, teas, nuts, and cacao are sufficient to yield vibrant shades. 

Quality Control for Consistency 

Every day that the company embarks in production, it produces thousands of mooncakes, a number that cannot practically be subjected to 100% checks by human beings. That is why we have quality control checks that are currently run by machines and people where necessary. It is essential to have weight sensors that help in correctly proportioning the filling to the shell. A foreign body identification system detects metallic contamination. Once packaged, random batches undergo additional inspection: opening up to analyze for a visual aspect, increasing temperature check to make sure it is steady, and sampling different production batches. Out of specification is interpreted as an emergency on the process adjustment. Digital systems record exactly which lots used in an ingredient and which ovens in each step so that we can trace and optimize the last of the specifics.

Beautiful Packaging Reflecting Tradition

Of course the such beautiful cakes must have the beautiful packing in order to become ideal gifts. Available options vary from the company's widely-recognized stackable acrylic boxes enhanced by acrylic flowers and ribbons to engraved wooden and faux leather boxes. Our snowskin variants were placed in acrylic dishes that show the bright colors of the sweets resting on solid black velvet backgrounds. Every box is decorated with ribbons in red and gold, the Chinese lucky colours, made individually by hand while never hurrying even when there are many boxes stacked for delivery. Individual cake covers composed of numerous layers of wrappers exist. Last but not the least, the address labels are put on the final outer box that contains all the cushioning that goes the distance to be safely delivered.  

What you get when you order mooncakes with us is a years-long devotion of tradition from our team that is involved in creating these treats. Starting from selecting our ingredients to controlling their quality and finally decorating, we pay homage to the craft of making cakes by hand and at the same time, we are keen to employ the use of technology to make every cake we produce the best it can be. This one goes to the customers with wide smiles on their faces after a perfect bite of the mooncake that reminds them of the joy of the full moon celebration.