The Harvest Moon Festival and Moon Cakes are VERY SPECIAL to me. First of all, my adapted recipe of Moon Cakes with a buttery-vanilla crust stuffed with a DELICIOUS, apricot marmalade filling is SERIOUSLY GOOD. We just baked some today to send to a Chinese friend…YUM!!

Watch the video and see how the Moon Cakes girls and I make them!

This is also a beautiful time of year and it was this very same time THIRTY-SIX years ago (YIKES!!!)… at the tender age of NINETEEN that I went ( all by myself ) to Taipei, Taiwan to study Mandarin and Chinese food! (Boy, was I innocent and optimistic!!) I arrived on a plane at 3 am (after traveling thirteen hours) knowing NO ONE EXCEPT a woman, Huang Su Huei, whose name I had been given by a fomer classmate in my freshman Mandarin class at the University of Wisconsin ( I dropped out after finishing a year ). Little did I know that she was a FAMOUS cooking teacher who had a WONDERFUL cooking school in Taipei. Not only did she and her family adopt me, but I lived with her for over three years and we translated and wrote THREE Chinese books together. (”Classic Chinese Cuisine I and II” and “Chinese Snacks”.)

Back to the moon cakes…. My Mandarin was not very good and her and her husband’s English was not great, but when we arrived at their house, they served me tea and mooncakes. We communicated through the moon cakes… . They told me about the festival, explained the story, and the rest as we say is history… Let’s all celebrate this beautiful, but poignant time of year!

Enjoy the full moon and MAKE MOON CAKES !!

Nina

Moon cake presses can be ordered through Woks ‘n’ Things, 2234 S. Wentworth Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. Phone: 312-842-0701

Bonus Video:
Watch Nina tell the Moon Cakes Story.

Alternate Versions:
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