A cream-white porcelain plate holds one whole golden Suzhou-style mooncake with thin flaky layers at its edge, and beside it a cut half showing a pink-gray fresh pork filling held in a thin, flaky golden shell.
Shaobing, griddle bread, guokui, naan, spring pancakes and other wheat flatbreads.
Suzhou-style mooncake is a flaky pastry mooncake: a water dough and an oil dough are folded into layers around a full filling. Sweet fillings such as rose, salt-and-pepper and bean paste are usually baked, while the savory fresh-pork filling can be baked or griddled, and the Shanghai fresh-pork mooncake is one of the savory kinds. Mooncakes appear as a Mid-Autumn food in Ming-period texts, and a late-Qing flaky mooncake method in the Zhongkui Lu closely resembles today's Suzhou style, but the book's original text was not checked and the available sources do not date the Suzhou style itself. Suzhou Daoxiangcun's shop history dates to 1773, based solely on the company's account.
What
The mark of Suzhou-style mooncake is its flaky pastry: a water dough is wrapped around an oil dough, rolled and folded into layers, and then filled generously. Sweet fillings such as rose, salt-and-pepper and bean paste are usually baked, while the savory fresh-pork filling can be baked or griddled; the Shanghai fresh-pork mooncake is one of the savory kinds.1,5,6
When
Mooncakes appear as a Mid-Autumn food in Ming-period texts; a late-Qing method for flaky mooncakes in the Zhongkui Lu closely resembles today's Suzhou style. The book's original text was not checked, and the available sources do not date the Suzhou style itself.1
Where
It is popular in Suzhou and Shanghai. Suzhou Daoxiangcun's shop history dates to 1773, based solely on the company's account. On September 25, 2025, the fresh-pork mooncake queue at Shanghai's Guangmingcun stretched from Huaihai Middle Road to Chengdu South Road, with waits of 4 to 6 hours; this comes from a reposted report.1,2,3,4
How
The water dough is wrapped around the oil dough, rolled and folded into layers, rolled up and cut, then flattened, filled, sealed and baked or griddled. Daoxiangcun's traditional method, documented in 2021, requires 18 pastry layers. In 2 home recipes the pork filling is stirred in one direction until sticky.1,4,5,6
Why
It is a Mid-Autumn food and also an everyday treat: in 2025, Shanghai people queued for fresh-pork mooncakes to eat at home, unlike gift boxes bought to give away.1,3
Impact and influence
Mooncakes and festival foods account for about 40% of Daoxiangcun's sales (a company figure in an undated report). In autumn 2025 the queue for fresh-pork mooncakes at Guangmingcun in Shanghai ran for hours.2,3
Legend has it that Emperor Taizong of Tang returned from a campaign against the Turks on the fifteenth of the eighth month, and was offered a round cake. He pointed at the moon and said a hu cake should be offered to the toad in it, and then shared the cake among his officials.
Told in: A folk legend about the origin of mooncakes in general, not about the Suzhou style. Chinese Wikipedia's entry on mooncakes marks such Tang accounts as legend and does not confirm them.
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is the savory fresh-pork kind of Suzhou-style mooncake, the simpler way I make it at home: vegetable oil in both doughs, baked in the home oven rather than griddled. It is not the sweet-filled kind and not a shop recipe. The amounts for the two doughs roughly follow one recipe, the pork amount follows the other, the oven timing is my own choice at home, and the pork filling must be baked all the way through.
Ingredients
All-purpose flour for the water dough 160 g
Vegetable oil for the water dough 50 g
Warm water for the water dough 60 ml
Cake flour for the oil dough 75 g
Vegetable oil for the oil dough 42 g
Minced pork, a mix of fat and lean 180 g
Preserved mustard stem 35 g, chopped
Ginger 1 teaspoon, minced
Light soy sauce 1 tablespoon
Shaoxing wine 1 tablespoon
Sugar 1 teaspoon
Sesame oil 1 teaspoon
Salt a pinch
Water for the filling 3 tablespoons
Steps
Water dough: knead the all-purpose flour, oil and warm water into a smooth dough, cover and rest for 30 minutes.
Oil dough: mix the cake flour and oil into a mass, and cover and rest it for 30 minutes as well.
Filling: mix the pork with the preserved mustard stem, ginger, soy sauce, wine, sugar, sesame oil and salt, and stir in one direction, adding the water in three additions, until sticky. Cover and chill.
Flatten the water dough, wrap it around the oil dough and pinch the seam shut. Roll it into a rectangle and fold it in thirds, turn it a quarter turn, roll it out again and fold in thirds once more.
Roll it into a thin long sheet, roll it up from one end and cut it into 12 pieces. Stand each piece cut side up, flatten it and roll it into a round, fill it with about 1 tablespoon of filling, pinch it closed and press it flat with the seam down.
Set them on a baking tray and bake in an oven heated to 200 degrees Celsius for about 22 minutes, checking the color once partway. I cut one open and take them out once the pork is cooked through with no pink left.
Tips
I roll with even, gentle pressure so the layers stay distinct.
I chill the filling before wrapping because it is easier to pinch, and I put the mooncakes into the oven as soon as they are shaped.
