Moon Cakes & Moon Pies

This is a moon cake.

In China, moon cakes are eaten during the Late Autumn Festival (at least according to the banners at the Lotus Center), but are already being sold. If I were a good adoptive mother of a Chinese child, I would know why. I, however, am not quite so on the ball, and only remember pieces of the backstory, but that doesn’t matter much because this post isn’t about accuracy.

During one of our WalMart trips in Zhengzhou, we passed by the bakery as they were setting out racks and racks of freshly made moon cakes. They smelled great, and I decided that we needed to give them a try. So, I bought two different kind, flying blind and not knowing at all what was in them. Well, the first was filled with some sort of fruity something-or-other, the texture of while I can only compare to the Marzipan that Britt Oda and Angjerd introduced me to from somewhere in Scandinavia. It tasted nothing like marzipan though.

This second one was also fruity in theme, but sickly sweet and was more the texture of a soft gum drop. I didn’t enjoy that one at all.

Deborah decided to do a side-by-side comparison of moon cakes vs. the moon pies, or “Orion pies” she had bought from the 7-eleven trip I already told you about. Here she is deciding which to eat:

Now the taste test:

Which would you pick?