The Mid-Autumn Festival is fast approaching, which means that it’s time to indulge in some seriously delicious mooncake. For the uninitiated, Mid-Autumn Festival, or Mooncake Festival, is the second largest celebration in China and several Asian countries after Lunar New Year. This festival celebrates the harvest when the moon is at its fullest. While it is autumn in China, hence the name, the festival takes place during Melbourne’s spring. Mooncakes are shared and eaten during this time. This year, Mid-Autumn Festival will be on Friday September 29. You should be able to find mooncake in any Asian grocery, but if you need some pointers on where to go, we’re here to help. In this list, you’ll find some awesome bakeries around Melbourne that will satisfy your mooncake cravings.
1. Amour Desserts
The mooncakes at Amour Desserts are so popular, that they sell out fast! Pre-orders for these signature handmade mooncakes are available now, for either Melbourne delivery or pick up. Try traditional flavours like lotus paste or red bean, opt for a pop of colour with their snow skin mooncakes, or taste something different like their exotic Nyonya sambal mooncake. See all the different flavours at Amour Desserts here.
2. The Langham
Treat your family and friends to an utterly luxurious mooncake experience from The Langham Melbourne. Presented in an elegant jewellery box, you’ll enjoy either white lotus seed paste mooncakes with double egg yolks, or mini custard with egg yolk mooncakes. The lotus option comes with four mooncakes, while the custard option comes with six. Find more info here.
3. Breadtop
Who doesn’t love Breadtop? This reliable bakery has stores all over Melbourne, so you won’t have to travel far for mooncake. There’s traditional flavours and gift sets, as well as snow mochi mooncake. This year, there’s five new flavours for mochi mooncake to try, including black sesame charcoal, hojicha coconut and matcha red bean. Pre-orders are available online now. Find your nearest store here.
4. Fellow Mart
At this online dessert store in Melbourne, you can order homemade snow skin mooncake. They do pre-orders for pick up and delivery in select suburbs on certain dates. Send Fellow Mart a DM via Instagram to place your order, and keep an eye on their socials for the pick up and delivery schedule. Find them on Instagram here.
5. New Shanghai
New Shanghai is celebrating the season with delicious mooncakes. After going out for lunch or dinner, tray one of their traditional Shanghai short crust pastry mooncakes. You can find them at Chadstone or Melbourne Central.
6. Joy Jaune
This small artisan patisserie in Preston serves handmade, freshly baked mooncakes. This year, there’s two different sets to choose from. Grab a pack of four with classic custard mooncakes inside. Or, go for the assorted set for fun flavours. Inside, you’ll find classic custard, uji matcha custard, uji hojicha custard and miso black sesame custard. Mooncakes from Joy Jaune are available for pick-up or delivery on select days. For more information, click here.
7. Godiva
Treat yourself to delicious chocolate mooncakes at Godiva. Celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival with artisan flavours, like lychee & oolong tea white chocolate mooncake or ginger & mango dark chocolate mooncake. There’s a few different gift boxes to choose from. See the collection here.
8. Kenny Lover
Thornbury ice cream shop, Kenny Lover, has teamed up with Aurum Poultry Co. to create a limited-edition mooncake ice cream flavour. This limited-edition ice cream has dashes of sweet lotus seed paste and mooncake pastry, folded through a rich and salty duck-yolk flavoured ice cream base. Kenny Lover is serving up this mooncake-inspired ice cream for the whole month of September.