Tasty pastries

When it comes to food, good ingredients and the personal touch always make a difference, especially when it comes to pastry. The time has come when the markets are once again full of moon cakes, with a major Chinese festival, the Mid-Autumn Festival, only a fortnight away, on September 14.

Like most chefs at Beijing's five-star hotels, Hong Kong chef Jeffrey Lau has been busy baking the restaurant's moon cakes for several weeks already. His ingredients come from Hong Kong and the cakes are freshly baked in the hotel. The flour of the cake is yeasted with fruit sugar.

There are just eight different cakes and most have a traditional stuffing inside seductive golden round cakes. Mashed Chinese jujube stuffing is not too sweet, while green tea stuffing is refreshing and helps alleviate grease. There are also five seeds, mashed red lotus seed and mashed red bean stuffing, as well as the popular preserved egg yolk stuffing.