“Every year around the Mid-Autumn Festival or near Tet, I come to Xuan Dinh village to buy cakes. My family loves the taste of the mooncakes here because the quality is always guaranteed. The filling is delicious, rich in flavor, and perfectly balanced.”
“I travel 20 kilometers from Hoang Mai to buy cakes in Xuan Dinh. Each time, I get four or five baked mooncakes and sticky rice mooncakes. I usually choose traditional fillings for the baked cakes, but now that we have children in the family, I also buy mung bean-filled cakes for them.”
These are the words of people who have enjoyed Xuan Dinh mooncakes for many years. In the days leading up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on September 25 this year, the village’s roads and narrow lanes are crowded with buyers, and the bakeries and workshops are working at full capacity.
Do Thi Nhuan, a mooncake maker in Xuan Dinh ward, told VOV, “The Mid-Autumn season starts around the beginning of the seventh lunar month, when buyers begin arriving to purchase cakes. Between 10 and 15 days before the festival, it gets extremely crowded and demand surges. During that peak period, we are extremely busy preparing ingredients and baking non-stop.”
Swiftly stirring different fillings, then kneading and dividing the dough into equal portions before rolling out the crust, Pham Huy Dung, a local moon-cake maker, said preparing the filling is the most crucial step. Each cake size requires a precise ratio of filling to crust.
“Mixing everything manually requires a lot of physical strength. Machine mixing doesn't produce a cake that tastes as good. We still make them the same way we did in the past – mixing thoroughly until all the ingredients blend harmoniously,” Dung explained.
After the filling is wrapped, the dough is placed in wooden molds to create the cakes’ distinctive shape. Before going into the oven, the cakes are brushed with a thin layer of egg yolk to heighten their aroma and give them a natural golden finish. They’re then baked and finally packaged.
“If we make them too early, the cakes won't taste as fresh or retain their full flavor by the time they reach customers. None of our cakes contain preservatives, so baked mooncakes last about 15 days, while sticky rice mooncakes stay fresh for 5 to 7 days,” Dung added.
Over generations, through skilled craftsmanship and family secrets, Xuan Dinh families have transformed familiar ingredients – pork fat, glutinous rice flour, mung beans, sesame, peanuts, ginger, coconut, and Chinese sausage – into delicacies known for their distinctive flavor.
What sets Xuan Dinh mooncakes apart is the careful preparation of the ingredients. Grapefruit blossom water, used to flavor the sticky rice mooncakes, is distilled early in the year when the flowers bloom. Candied kumquats for baked mooncake fillings are prepared in the early spring, and pork fat is diced by hand rather than machine-cut to prevent it from being crushed. Each workshop has its own secret recipe and signature flavor.
A local cake maker named Dung told us, “Traditional mooncakes contain pork fat, lotus seeds, lime leaves, melon seeds, sesame, candied squash, Chinese sausage, flour, and heirloom spices passed down from previous generations.”
Xuan Dinh village today blends tradition and innovation. Local artisans and production facilities have introduced new flavors to please modern tastes – soft dried fruit preserves, fruit gummies, and low-sugar, healthier confections. The village's products are widely sold in Vietnam and exported to Japan, South Korea, and Europe.
According to Nhuan, local households also produce young green rice cakes, steamed sticky rice cakes, peanut brittle, sesame candy, and sugar coated-lotus seeds, coconut, and squash.
“My family makes traditional cakes that were passed down by our forefathers. Today, we also produce new items in a wide range of flavors and colors to meet market demand,” said Nhuan.
The growing craft village provides stable employment for hundreds of locals and people from nearby areas. Local authorities have supported the village's sustainable development by ensuring food safety and promoting the “Xuan Dinh Confectionery” brand.
