Red Bean Mooncakes

This Sunday is the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is celebrated in many countries including China and Vietnam.  Mooncakes are a tasty pastry traditionally enjoyed during the Mid-Autumn Festival.  They consist of a thin pastry crust, and are usually filled with red bean paste (yum), lotus seed paste (yum yum), or some other dense, tasty filling.

Black Sesame & Red Bean Macarons

My husband and I go to his grandmother's house for dinner almost weekly.  She always prepares several elaborate, delicious dishes for us, and we always leave with leftovers.  Unfortunately, Grandma doesn't speak very much English, and I don't speak Mandarin, so it's hard for me to express my gratitude for these excellent dinners in words.  I've learned the Mandarin word for "thank you", but it never seems like enough.

This week, I decided I was going to bake something for Grandma.  She doesn't bake herself, and she usually seems to like the things I make for her.

Black & White Sesame Cupcakes with Sweet Bean Filling

Last week, I saw a blog post about a cupcake with black sesame buttercream.  Immediately, I began to plot my next cupcake.  I love sesame.  I sometimes have weird cravings for it.  I started to envision a lightly sesame cupcake with sweet bean filling and sesame buttercream.  At this point, I realized I was scheming to create a cupcake version of my favorite dim sum treat: Jin Deui.