In a small kitchen on Van Quan Street - Ha Dong, the reporter was invited by Ms. Thu Huyen (29 years old - owner of a bakery in Hanoi) to eat a moon cake with a bright red crust and an ivory white filling. Biting into the cake, the sweet and slightly fatty flavor of the cake surprised the reporter. This moon cake is completely different from the familiar moon cakes.
Ms. Thu Huyen's shop is busy preparing cakes for this year's moon festival.
Modern moon cakes compete with traditional cakes
In our country’s traditional moon-viewing tray, there are a pair of moon cakes, one golden-brown and the other white and soft, nestled next to a few handfuls of green sticky rice heavy with the scent of fresh rice, a few rough bananas dipped in egg yolk, and a few bright red persimmons as soft and plump as the lips of a young girl. That tray, with a pot of lotus tea and some green-skinned grapefruits in season, would be truly complete.
However, with today's fast-paced life, not everyone has enough time to prepare a grand tray of mooncakes, or family members rarely gather together to enjoy the moon like in the past. Mooncakes also join in that bustling flow and are transformed into all kinds of fillings to make them easy to eat and accessible to young people.
Modern version of moon-viewing tray. Photo: Quang Hien Nguyen.
Some modern fillings
Modern moon cakes are not limited to a few familiar fillings such as green tea, chestnuts... but can be more innovative than that. Talking to Thu Huyen - the owner of a bakery specializing in modern moon cakes, Travellive reporters learned about many other extremely unique types of cakes.
It is known that the original moon cake that Thu Huyen let the reporter taste was named “red velvet” - based on the name of a sweet cake originating from Europe with a bright red cocoa cake base and a filling made from cream cheese. These ingredients are also present in the moon cake, creating a flavor very similar to the traditional red velvet cake.
The bright red cake is the impressive red velvet cake. Photo: Thu Huyen.
Not only the red velvet cake, Huyen brought out a large tray of cakes with many different types of cakes. Some had brown crusts with black spots that Huyen called milk tea moon cakes, some had pure black crusts, some had green crusts… they looked extremely beautiful and unique.
A series of consecutive batches of cakes were baked and displayed beautifully. Photo: Thu Huyen.
Thu Huyen shared: “I like drinking milk tea, eating Oreo, Red Velvet, and Tiramisu, so I combine them into mooncakes. Why can we have Red Velvet and Oreo drinks but not mooncakes with fillings like that?”
Green tea cake flavor
The cake has a slightly dull green crust. According to the shop owner, because they use high-quality Taiwanese matcha powder without any artificial colors, the cake crust will turn slightly yellow when exposed to heat, not as bright green as when it is “raw”.
The green color of the green tea cake when the matcha powder is still "raw".
Inside the cake is a green bean paste mixed with matcha powder to maximize the tea flavor. Take a bite, the cake has a characteristic light bitter taste and the cool aroma of young tea buds. When it reaches the throat, the cake changes to a light sweet taste and the gentle aroma spreads throughout the palate.
Tiramisu flavor
The traditional tiramisu is made from a soft sponge cake (lady finger) spread with a mixture of Kahlua and Italian coffee and sweet and sour mascarpone cream. With the mooncake version, it would be difficult to bring that original flavor to the cake.
The famous tiramisu cake is placed next to other unique cakes. Photo: Thu Huyen.
However, with the cake that Travellive reporter tasted, she was completely surprised because the aroma of this tiramisu cake was exactly the same as the tiramisu cake she ate in high-class restaurants and hotels.
The cake has a very soft crust, with a faint aroma of coffee and wine, and a bit of sweetness from the cream cheese filling. When the two blend together, the reporter's taste buds seem to relive the previous experiences of the taste of tiramisu cake.
What do young people think about modern moon cakes?
On an autumn afternoon when the sun was still harsh and golden like honey, Travellive reporter talked with Mr. Bui Ngoc Khoi (29 years old - Hanoian, currently a food photographer and owner of the channel group "I want to Eat Deliciously") about the trend of innovative moon cakes.
He shared his opinion: “For my grandparents, the traditional cake is the green bean moon cake. For my parents, the traditional cake is the commercial moon cake, consisting of a pair of baked cakes and moon cakes, which are fish moon cakes. But for my grandchildren, the moon cake must have green tea filling to be delicious. I think that tradition or innovation is not too important, because after all, it is still a gift expressing love every Mid-Autumn Festival.”
The cake combines traditional and modern elements by using familiar ingredients from coconut milk, pandan leaves and cashew nuts. However, the flavor is extremely fresh, unlike any traditional cake.
However, not all modern mooncakes are well received or create positive reactions. Continuing to talk with Mr. Khoi, the reporter learned more about the modern mooncake market, which is colorful and new but also messy and patchy:
“I think we are learning a lot from China about innovative cakes. Whatever new cakes they have, we will have them next season. Besides, there are bakeries that intentionally shock with strange flavors like “sticky rice with fried onions”, “kitkat” or even British cheese filling. I don’t really support such excessive creations. I think creations should also consider the aesthetic factor in cuisine as well as cultural suitability,” Mr. Khoi emphasized.
Modern moon cakes today have chocolate, lemon... and are not limited to green bean or mixed flavors like in the past. Photo: Quang Hien Nguyen.
Not only competing with traditional moon cakes, according to Travellive, the appearance of innovative moon cakes has promptly "saved" the moon cake market which is gradually falling into a rut due to the familiarity and boredom of some traditional fillings before the storm of modern, trendy life today.
