Mooncake master passes on long tradition of making cakes endorsed by Empress Dowager
Print Edition
Ni Endi is a master mooncake maker and general manager of the seven-generation firm Yuelaifang, awarded the title of China Time-Honored Brand.
Ni, who is now 58, has been making mooncakes since he came to Yuelaifang as an apprentice at the age of 18. He learned to make various traditional Chinese pastries from master pastry chefs at the plant.
Today, he is the only master at Yuelaifang who can make a special handmade mooncake known as flaky crust mooncake (fanmao yuebing ).
This mooncake originated in Beijing and was popular in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911).
Ni’s mooncake is similar to Suzhou-style mooncake: layered crust with either sweet fillings made of nuts or salty fillings made of Chinese ham.
But there are big differences. According to Ni, it takes 10 steps to make the mooncake by hand, and baking is the most crucial step.
Baking skills
“The Suzhou-style mooncake has a golden colored crust, while the flaky crust mooncake must have a cream color without a hint of yellow,” he said. The cream color is achieved by lower baking temperatures and longer time in the oven. It takes 40-45 minutes to bake, longer than Suzhou-style cakes. It is baked at 50-80 degrees Celsius from above and 170 degrees beneath, compared with 230 degrees, top and bottom, for Suzhou-style mooncakes.
It’s also tricky to achieve the flaky crust, which is layered in a special way and doesn’t just have one layer exactly on top of another.
It is said that Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) named it. The story goes that she at first thought it was an ordinary mooncake and was angry because it looked tough and hard to bite. But when she saw and tasted the flaky crust and tasted the soft filling, she was delighted. She called it fanmao yuebing, meaning flaky crust mooncake.
Getting popular
Afterwards, it became popular in Beijing and other areas. It was sold in Shanghai in the 1930s.
It can only be made by hand, and Ni is the only master who can do it correctly in Shanghai, so production is limited.
Last year the plant turned out 800 boxes with six mooncakes per box. Each cake weighed 100 grams. This year Ni made 650 boxes.
They are mostly preordered and hard to find in retail stores.
In 2005, Ni became general manager.
In his 37 years with the company, he has had apprentices who learned to make flaky crust mooncake and other pastries.
But these days, fewer people are interested because the work is so demanding and time-consuming.
About Yuelaifang
Yuelaifang was founded in 1926 by Yu Pengcai and located on old Robinson Road, which is today’s Changshou Road in Putuo District.
The company has won numerous awards in various fields. In 2011 it was recognized as a China Time-Honored Brand.
Now Yuelaifang is a subsidiary of Shanghai Happy Group, a state-owned company with more than 200 retail stores across Shanghai.
The company makes more than 1,000 kinds of food products, including various kinds of mooncakes, sweet green rice balls, pre-cooked dishes, alcoholic beverages, cookies and shortcakes, as well as a signature product, Shanghai-style smoked fish.
Though Yuelaifang has a long history, it is also a modern brand, focusing on innovation in product development and meeting the requirements of customers.
It is also a research base for the College of Life Science at East China Normal University where students and researchers develop new products and improve cooking and processing techniques. The collaboration has produced a blueberry series, including cookies, cakes, breads and mooncakes made of blueberries.
The company is rooted in Putuo, and it is giving back to the community.
It frequently gives mooncakes to seniors living alone for the Mid-Autumn Festival, as well as birthday cakes. It sends gift packages to students staying at East China Normal University over the holidays.
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