With 30 years of experience making mooncakes and Hong Kong cuisine snacks, chef Li Jian Chuan - head chef at Hanoi Hotel - guided visitors to try making traditional mooncakes for this year's Mid-Autumn Festival.

Each guest in the workshop is provided with ingredients including: cake crust, salted eggs, white lotus seed filling, flour, molds and baking tools.

Holding the soft, smooth lotus seed filling in his hand, chef Li Jian Chuan gave instructions and confided, "I have been making moon cakes for nearly 30 years, including 9 years in Vietnam. The 3 fillings that I like the most are white lotus seeds, red beans and five-spice mixture. Today I will guide you to make moon cakes with white lotus seeds and a salted egg."

According to this chef's method, the lotus seed filling is rolled into a ball and then a small hole is made just enough to place the salted egg in. The egg is not completely wrapped around the lotus, but left a little open.

"The salted egg acts as a stopper to prevent air from getting into the filling. This will help the cake bake evenly and beautifully without cracking," Mr. Chuan explained.

Next, the baker sprinkles a little dry flour on the baking mat and rubs both hands together to prevent sticking. The crust is flattened, rolled into a circle about 12cm in diameter and placed on the palm of the hand.

The previously made filling is placed in the middle of the dumpling skin, turned upside down so that the salted egg yolk is exposed underneath (at this point the filling is like a blanket). Hold the filling with one hand, and rub the dumpling skin evenly so that the lotus seed and salted egg yolk filling are completely covered.

The difficulty of this method is to wrap the filling tightly in the dough, and press lightly to ensure the salted egg yolk is completely inside the lotus filling. Finally, shape the cake with a mooncake mold.

Wearing an apron neatly, Ms. Tran Loan (Dong Da district, Hanoi) could not help but be excited because although she eats moon cakes every year, this is the first time she has tried making this traditional cake herself.

Under the guidance of a Hong Kong chef, Loan found that making mooncakes was not as difficult as she thought. "After today's experience, I may try making mooncakes for my family this Mid-Autumn Festival," Loan shared.

As for Ms. Thuy Duong, who has experience making moon cakes in previous moon seasons, this experience is still attractive because of the new way of making cakes that she learned.

"The chef carefully and in detail instructed me how to make the cake. When I made moon cakes myself in previous years, the crust was quite thick to cover the filling. But today, the chef shared with me and the participants the secret to making the cake with a super thin crust and how to mold it neatly and beautifully.

I find making moon cakes not too difficult, but if I had to choose between making them myself or buying them, I would probably still choose to buy them, because I'm sure the traditional cake shops will be more delicious than making them myself," Ms. Duong humorously said.

At the end of the experience, each visitor gets to take home a lotus seed mooncake that they have just made. Whether it is a beautiful, floral-shaped cake or a cake that is dented because they were too rough when picking it up, everyone is happy with this relaxing experience.

Young people are passionate about making handmade moon cakes

TTO - This year's Mid-Autumn Festival, many young people make delicious, clean, and beautiful moon cakes by hand to send to relatives, friends, and colleagues... Because they are popular with consumers, the handmade moon cakes of these young people are always sold out.