September 16, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Full moon

by Rebecca Wallace

A crowd gathers in the foyer of Ming's Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto as head chef Vincent Li deftly whips together dough, flour, red bean paste and a salted egg yolk. In almost no time, another rich moon cake is ready for the oven.

These hearty baked creations are eaten each autumn to mark the Chinese Moon Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth moon of the lunar calendar (this year, it's Sept. 18). It's the day when the moon is said to be the fullest and most dazzling.

During the festival, many families gather together outside to admire the alabaster beauty of the moon. Some restaurants hold moon cake-making demonstrations, such as those taking place at Ming's this month. The last Ming's demonstration is set for Saturday.

And many cities host Moon Festivals, such as the one at Memorial Park in Cupertino on Saturday. It will include traditional dance, music and demonstrations of Chinese calligraphy.

Most of all, though, it's a time to eat scores of moon cakes. Many restaurants and Asian markets such as the Mountain View Market on Castro Street are piled high with a rich cornucopia of cake boxes. There are small metal tins with delicate women's faces, grand squares festooned with ribbons, rectangles made of shining golden paper, and just about any other design you can think of.

Behind the boxes and the baked goods, there's a legend linked to the Moon Festival. Some say there was a time when there were 10 suns and the weather was sweltering, Ming's proprietor Vicky Ching said. So the king raised his bow and arrow and shot down nine of the suns, whereupon the Empress of Heaven rewarded him with an immortality pill.

The king's wife, though, stole the pill and took it herself, Ching said. She rose into the sky and took on the bright beauty of the moon.

Besides floating in the sky, the moon has a more prosaic home during the Moon Festival: its roundness is reflected in the yolks of duck eggs that nestle inside many moon cakes.

At the "Art of Moon Cake" demonstrations at Ming's, the yellow-orange yolks take center stage at chef Li's table. Piled in a small bowl and looking like dried apricots, the yolks keep their globe shape even though they haven't been cooked, Ching said. They've been soaked in salt water until they solidify.

Creating a new cake, Li grasps a small handful of dough, which is made from flour, syrup, water and lemon juice.

Li adds flour to the dough and works it on a wooden board, then pulls off a piece and weighs it with an old-fashioned hand-held scale that has a small plate on one side and a weight on the other. This is to ensure the cake will fit inside the wooden moon cake mold.

Ching chuckles. "In China, housewives usually bring their own scales to the market so they won't be cheated," she says. "It's very portable."

Li then takes a handful of red bean paste from a long brick of bean, weighs it and puts an egg yolk inside, and smoothes the dough around it. The whole thing goes inside the mold, which imprints a design of leaves on the cake and gives it scalloped sides. Li enlists a young girl to turn the mold upside down and knock it loudly. The cake emerges to applause, ready to be baked. Partway through the baking, it will be brushed with egg to make it shine.

The cakes vary. Sometimes Li uses red bean paste and sometimes black bean. Sometimes he puts an egg yolk inside and sometimes not. He also uses lotus seed paste as filling. Since he has four different wooden molds, cakes can be square or round, small or large.

Samples of finished moon cakes also abound at the demonstration. The brushed-on egg gives the dough a rich, savory softness and a healthy glow when baked. The bean and lotus seed fillings are smooth, flavorful and slightly sweet. Lotus seed is a pale yellow-tan and a bit less dense than the bean fillings, akin to marzipan.

The cakes themselves feel weighty in the hand -- particularly if they contain a single, double or even triple egg yolk. The yolk adds a strong, somewhat salty flavor and is very filling.

Moon cakes are substantial. Many people slice them up and share rather than attempting to consume a whole one at once.

There's a galaxy of flavors for moon cakes. At the Mountain View Market, for example, the vast variety also includes five-nut and pine-nut cakes. Ching also noted that pineapple is popular in Taiwan.

And just a quick search on the Internet turns up moon cakes filled with dried fruit, ham, coconut, mung bean paste, sweet potato, chocolate, Earl Grey tea, pistachio and green tea. Haagen-Dazs has also started making moon cakes with ice cream.

Ming's is following the ice cream trend as well, serving moon cake a la mode with a Moon Festival Dinner menu through Sept. 18.


What: A moon-cake-making demonstration by Ming's head chef Vincent Li, and the Moon Festival of Silicon Valley in Cupertino.


Where: The demonstration is at Ming's, 1700 Embarcadero Road (East), Palo Alto. The festival is at Memorial Park on Stevens Creek Boulevard in Cupertino.


When: The Ming's demonstration runs from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 17. The festival is from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.


Cost: Both events are free.


Info: Call Ming's at (650) 856-7700 or go to www.mings.com. For information about the festival, go to www.themoonfestival.org.

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