Roses and Mooncakes

My mom started making her own mooncakes two years ago. Every Autumn Festival, I would adamantly insist on her sending me a box. Her first batches were pattern-less, resembling little flat cakes, still delicious nonetheless. When she went back to China over the summer, she hunted everywhere for traditional mooncake molds, to no avails. Then she told me of how grandma went out early one morning and came back with one. She never told us how she got it, and we never asked :)

Mom and I were never fans of the traditional egg yolk mooncakes, deeming the filling too sweet and rich and the dough too heavy. Instead mom created this one - a mixture of nuts and sometimes dried fruits, sweetened with honey and bespeckled with crushed rose petals. Everything is surrounded with a layer of oil-based dough and then a water-based one. The resultant pastry is flaky and tender, the filling multi-faceted.

There's no recipe yet. We did everything by taste, feel, and experience. When I have time, I'll work out the exact amounts. But for now, enjoy the pictures...

Beautiful isn't it?

rose for tea, petals ready to be crushed

mixed in with a combination of pinenuts, peanuts, walnuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seed, oil, and honey

wrapped in two types of dough, pressed into mooncake mold

brushed with egg white and ready for the oven and then to eat