Snow skin mooncake, snowy mooncake, ice skin mooncake or crystal mooncake is a Chinese

confection Confectionery is the art of making confections, or sweet foods. Confections are items that are rich in sugar and carbohydrates, although exact definitions are difficult. In general, however, confections are divided into two broad and somew ...

eaten during the

Mid-Autumn Festival The Mid-Autumn Festival (for other names, see § Etymology) is a harvest festival celebrated in Chinese culture. It is held on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar with a full moon at night, corresponding to mid- ...

. It is a cold

mooncake A mooncake () is a Chinese bakery product traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節). The festival is primarily about the harvest while a legend connects it to moon watching, and mooncakes are regarded as a delicacy. ...

with

glutinous rice Domestication syndrome refers to two sets of phenotypic traits that are common to either domesticated plants or domesticated animals. Domesticated animals tend to be smaller and less aggressive than their wild counterparts; they may also hav ...

skin, originating from

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

. Snow skin mooncakes are also found in

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

and

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. Although snow skin mooncakes are usually made and sold by

bakeries A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based baked goods made in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, doughnuts, bagels, Pastry, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as Coffeehouse, cafés, servi ...

, these mooncakes are not baked in

oven upA double oven A ceramic oven An oven is a tool that is used to expose materials to a hot environment. Ovens contain a hollow chamber and provide a means of heating the chamber in a controlled way. In use since antiquity, they have been use ...

s like traditional cakes. 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 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 largest pub ...

. 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 Lotus seed paste is a Chinese dessert ingredient made from dried lotus seeds. It is traditionally considered a luxurious ingredient. Production The process for making the paste is similar to that of smooth red bean paste. First, the dried seeds ...

, resulting in very high

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...

and

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

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

. 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

. 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

, 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 with help from her husband, Joel. Description ...

or yukimi daifuku, as both have

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'' is a genus of monocots with about 578 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. Common names include pandan, screw palm and screw pine. The genus is classifi ...

) leaf, a popular and uniquely South-East Asian flavor. While traditional

s are usually filled with salted duck egg yolks and

lotus seed Lotus or LOTUS may refer to: Plants * List of plants known as lotus, a list of various botanical taxa commonly known as lotus, particularly: **'' Nelumbonaceae'', a single-genus family of aquatic flowering plants, consisting of just two species ...

paste or

red bean paste Red bean paste () or red bean jam, also called adzuki bean paste or ''anko'' (a Japanese word), is a paste made of red beans (also called "adzuki beans"), used in East Asian cuisine. The paste is prepared by boiling the beans, then mashing or ...

, snow skin mooncakes can be filled with a variety of fillings such as

mung bean The mung bean or green gram (''Vigna radiata'') is a plant species in the legume family.Brief Introduction of Mung Bean. Vigna Radiata Extract Green Mung Bean Extract Powder Phaseolus aureus Roxb Vigna radiata L R Wilczek. MDidea-Extracts P ...

paste,

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...

green tea Green tea is a type of tea made from the leaves and buds of the '' Camellia sinensis'' that have not undergone the withering and oxidation process that creates oolong teas and black teas. Green tea originated in China in the late 1st millenn ...

jam Fruit preserves are preparations of fruits whose main preserving agent is sugar and sometimes acid, often stored in glass jars and used as a condiment or spread. There are many varieties of fruit preserves globally, distinguished by the meth ...

strawberry The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown Hybrid (biology), hybrid plant cultivated worldwide for its fruit. The genus ''Fragaria'', the strawberries, is in the rose family, Rosaceae. The fruit ...

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavoring, flavor other foods. Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree (''Theobroma cacao''); unprocesse ...

coffee Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...

cheese Cheese is a type of dairy product produced in a range of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk (usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats or sheep). During prod ...

. Other flavored fillings include

durian The durian () is the edible fruit of several tree species belonging to the genus ''Durio''. There are 30 recognized species, at least nine of which produce edible fruit. ''Durio zibethinus'', native to Borneo and Sumatra, is the only species ...

sesame Sesame (; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a plant in the genus '' Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for ...

, mango pomelo sago, and

purple yam ''Dioscorea alata''also called ube (), ubi, purple yam, or greater yam, among many other namesis a species of yam (a tuber). The tubers are usually a vivid violet-purple to bright lavender (hence the common name), but some range from creamy ...

. File:P1130535 (14830359818).jpg SnowSkinMooncake4.JPG, Mango jam and crispy rice SnowSkinMooncake2.jpg, Cheese and blueberry SnowSkinMooncake3.JPG, Black sesame and

macadamia ''Macadamia'' is a genus of four species of trees in the flowering plant family Proteaceae. They are indigenous to Australia—specifically, northeastern New South Wales and central and southeastern Queensland. Two species of the genus are comm ...

nuts Snow Skin Fruity Mooncakes.jpg

Production and storage

Coloured Mooncakes with different flavors 1

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 (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

. 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 hazard, biological, chemical hazard, chemical, and physical hazards in production processes that can cause the finished ...

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 services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesal ...

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 A refrigerator, commonly shortened to fridge, is a commercial and home appliance consisting of a thermal insulation, thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump (mechanical, electronic or chemical) that transfers heat from its inside to ...

before serving, to allow them to soften. Thawed mooncakes should be consumed within 2 hours. Refreezing is not advised.

References

External links

* {{pastries Cakes Autumn traditions Glutinous rice dishes Hong Kong cuisine Macanese cuisine Cantonese cuisine Chinese pastries Chinese confectionery

History

Composition

Production and storage

See also

References

External links