Huong Sen Mooncakes are not unfamiliar to the people of the Capital, especially those in the Old Quarter. Since 1984, Ms. Le Thi Hau, the owner of a bakery, decided to make and sell mooncakes to earn extra income.
Ms. Hau’s bakery is famous for its traditional mixed sticky rice mooncakes and baked mooncakes. With carefully selected ingredients that ensure food safety, the mixed fillings include: lard, Chinese sausage, lotus jam… mixed with the characteristic lemongrass scent of traditional mixed mooncakes.
With her skillful hands of over 40 years of making cakes, every mooncake season, customers coming to buy will always see Ms. Hau quickly kneading the ingredients evenly, then rolling them into balls and placing them on a separate tray.
The shop’s specialty is carp-shaped mooncakes. Baked and sticky rice carp-shaped mooncakes have two types of fillings, mainly mixed or green beans and salted eggs. Not choosing to bake traditional pig-shaped mooncakes, Ms. Le Thi Hau shared: “I chose the image of a carp as the shop’s prominent symbol. Vietnamese folklore has the image of a “carp transforming into a dragon” representing prosperity, teaching people to always strive to rise up, not to be discouraged and to achieve success.”
According to her, this image has both deep meaning and creates excitement for children when they break the cake every Mid-Autumn Festival season.
Carp-shape Mooncake. Photo: Provided by the character
Due to the diverse needs of the market, the store now has mooncakes with mixed roast chicken, mixed salted eggs and green beans with two eggs.
Ms. Hau said: “I only start selling and accepting orders for moon cakes from the beginning of July to the end of August of the lunar calendar and then stop. Unlike other stores that sell all year round, each year I focus on about 2 months to sell the best products to everyone.”
A batch of mooncakes waiting to be baked. Photo: Character provided
Every full moon of the 8th lunar month, this bakery sells an average of 600-700 mooncakes per day, and on busy days it can sell up to 1,000 mooncakes. The mooncakes do not contain preservatives so they can only be kept for about 14 days, so many people who buy them as gifts are often carefully advised on how to preserve them.
As new mooncake brands increasingly offer diverse designs and ingredients, traditional cakes are gradually losing their position in the market. However, Ms. Hau, like many other traditional bakers, is determined to preserve the traditional taste of cakes from ancient times, imbued with Vietnamese cultural identity.
