Snow skin moon, snowy mooncake, ice skin mooncake or crystal mooncake is a Chinese food eaten during the
Mid-Autumn Festival. Snow skin mooncakes are a non-baked
mooncake
A mooncake () is a Chinese bakery product traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節). The festival is about lunar appreciation and Moon watching, and mooncakes are regarded as a delicacy. Mooncakes are offered between ...
originating from
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
.
[
]
[
]
The snow skin mooncake is also found in
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...
,
Mainland China
"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...
,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
,
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
and
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
.
[
]
Although snow skin mooncakes are usually made and sold by
bakeries
A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who w ...
, these mooncakes are not baked in
ovens like traditional cakes. Further, unlike traditional mooncakes which are served at room temperature, snow skin mooncakes are typically eaten cold.
History
The snow skin mooncake emerged in the 1960s.
[Lianhe Wanbao <冰皮月饼水准高>, August 31, 1989, page 24. Newspapers are housed in the ]National Library, Singapore
The National Library, Singapore is the flagship national library of Singapore. A subsidiary of the National Library Board (NLB), it is located on an 11,304–square metre site in Victoria Street within the Downtown Core. It is the country's ...
. The relevant microfilm is kept a
Lee Kong Chian Reference Library
(ID: NL16753). A digital copy can be retrieved at th
NewspaperSG
website.
It was developed by a bakery in Hong Kong, because the traditional Cantonese mooncakes were made with
salted duck egg yolks and
lotus seed paste, resulting in very high
sugar and
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
content.
[
] Since many customers thought traditional mooncakes were an oily food, the bakery used fruit for filling and less oil to make a mooncake with less fat.
[
]
Another early pioneer of snow skin mooncakes is Poh Guan Cake House () in
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
.
Snow skin mooncakes gradually become popular in the 1970s. At that time the snow skin mooncake was also called a "crystal mooncake" (). The name "Bing Pi Yue Bing" () appeared in advertisements in the early 1980s.
[Lianhe Wanbao <大同酒家中秋月饼广告>, August 29, 1984, page 7. Newspapers are housed in the ]National Library, Singapore
The National Library, Singapore is the flagship national library of Singapore. A subsidiary of the National Library Board (NLB), it is located on an 11,304–square metre site in Victoria Street within the Downtown Core. It is the country's ...
. The relevant microfilm is kept at Lee Kong Chian Reference Library (ID: NL14580). A digital copy can be retrieved at th
NewspaperSG
website.
Composition
The crust of snow skin mooncake is made of
glutinous rice, which is frozen.
[
]
The snow skin mooncake is similar to
mochi ice cream
Mochi ice cream is a confection made from Japanese mochi (pounded sticky rice) with an ice cream filling. It was invented by Japanese-American businesswoman and community activist Frances Hashimoto.
Description
Mochi ice cream is a small, round ...
or
yukimi daifuku, as both have
glutinous rice crusts and have to be kept frozen.
Snow skin mooncakes are typically white and are served cold, which is why they are named "snow skin". However, mooncakes may have other colors because of added flavors in their crusts. For example, if chocolate is added, the color of the crust might be brown. Green-colored skin is made with the juice of the aromatic Pandan (
Pandanus amaryllifolius
''Pandanus amaryllifolius'' is a tropical plant in the ''Pandanus'' (screwpine) genus, which is commonly known as pandan (; ). It has fragrant leaves which are used widely for flavouring in the cuisines of Southeast Asia and South Asia.
Occurre ...
) leaf, a popular and uniquely South-East Asian flavor.
While traditional
mooncake
A mooncake () is a Chinese bakery product traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節). The festival is about lunar appreciation and Moon watching, and mooncakes are regarded as a delicacy. Mooncakes are offered between ...
s are usually filled with salted duck egg yolks and
lotus seed paste or
red bean paste, snow skin mooncakes can be filled with a variety of fillings such as
mung bean paste,
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...
,
green tea,
jam,
strawberry,
chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
,
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Seeds of ...
,
cheese.
[
] Other flavored fillings include
durian,
sesame,
mango pomelo sago, and
purple yam
''Dioscorea alata'', also known as purple yam, ube (, ), or greater yam, among many other names, is a species of yam (a tuber). The tubers are usually a vivid violet-purple to bright lavender in color (hence the common name), but some range in ...
.
Production and storage
The requirements of production, storage and transportation for snow skin mooncakes are more stringent than for baked mooncakes.
[
] Because snow skin mooncakes are not baked in an oven, high temperatures cannot be used to kill
bacteria
Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...
. Factories have to keep sterile conditions, and many manufacturers are requested to follow
HACCP
Hazard analysis and critical control points, or HACCP (), is a systematic preventive approach to food safety from biological, chemical, and physical hazards in production processes that can cause the finished product to be unsafe and designs mea ...
systematic for food safety. The mooncakes are also kept at a low temperature while in storage, shipping and at the
retailer
Retail is the sale of goods and Service (economics), services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturing, manufacturers, dire ...
to prevent bacteria growing. Snow skin mooncakes were difficult to find in Mainland China before the 2000s, because of the need to keep them refrigerated while in transit from the producer to the consumer.
[
]
Snow skin mooncakes are usually packaged in plastic bags in pairs or individually. Because they are not baked, snow skin mooncakes must be refrigerated and can be stored in freezer for up to a few weeks. They are typically thawed for a few hours in a
refrigerator before serving, to allow them to soften. Thawed mooncakes should be consumed within 2 hours.
[
] Refreezing is not advised.
See also
*
Mochi ice cream
Mochi ice cream is a confection made from Japanese mochi (pounded sticky rice) with an ice cream filling. It was invented by Japanese-American businesswoman and community activist Frances Hashimoto.
Description
Mochi ice cream is a small, round ...
*
Yukimi Daifuku
*
*
List of desserts
A dessert is typically the sweet course that, after the entrée and main course, concludes a meal in the culture of many countries, particularly Western culture. The course usually consists of sweet foods, but may include other items. The word ...
References
External links
* {{Commons category-inline, Snow skin mooncakes
Autumn traditions
Chinese desserts
Glutinous rice dishes
Hong Kong cuisine
Macau cuisine
Cantonese cuisine