Mooncake

A mooncake (Simplified: 月饼; Traditional: 月餅; Hanyu pinyin: yuèbĭng) is a heavy Chinese pastry. They have many possible fillings; the most common are figs, red bean paste and almonds. Though they are sold all year round, moon cakes are associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The first mooncakes appeared during the Han Dynasty; however, those moon cakes were filled with fermented tofu from the harvest of the previous year. More modern moon cakes appeared in the Tang Dynasty. This was also the first time they were sold at market. Today, they are rarely made at home; special bakeries make and sell them.