Making moon cakes from dawn to dusk

By Betty Hallock

Sept. 30, 2009 12 AM PT

Thwack-thwack, thwack! Rafael Diaz hits the side of a wooden moon cake mold twice against his work surface, flips it over and hits it again so that the small, hefty cake pops right out.

A longtime employee at Chinatown’s

The Phoenix Bakery’s
The mixture is gathered into a ball and the preserved yolk is pressed into the top of it, positioned correctly so that it ends up in the center of the cake. When you cut the moon cake into quarters (it’s a dense pastry meant to be shared and eaten with tea), each person should get a part of the yolk.

The mixture is wrapped in a thin layer of Phoenix’s moon cake dough, made with a dark sugar syrup so it’s a burnished golden-brown once baked. Then it’s placed into a custom mold, carved with an insignia indicating the kind of filling.

The mark of a good moon cake maker is the facileness with which he removes the cake from its mold before baking.

“It’s a rhythm thing,” says head of production Youlen Chan, a member of the bakery’s founding family. “Boom-boom-boom! Twice on the side, once on top.”

His father, Lun Chan, Phoenix’s retired patriarch, was its original moon cake maker. Diaz says he learned the art of de-molding moon cakes from Lun.

Let’s hope it won’t soon be a lost art. Says Diaz: “I’m the only one who knows how to do it.”

Phoenix Bakery, 969 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, (213) 628-4642, www.phoenix bakeryinc.com.

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