Blogger / 11 September, 2024 / Nanny Anita

Mooncake Play Dough

One of the biggest festivals celebrated in China and other East Asian and Southeast Asian countries is the Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhong Qiu Jie).  While its date changes every year, it coincides with the harvest moon in September.

According to Chinese mythology during ancient times the Earth had 10 suns, which as you can imagine was not great for the world.  A heroic archer named Hou Yi shot down 9 of the suns, saving the planet.  For his heroic deed, the gods gave him a pill that would make him immortal, which he gave to his wife Chang’e for safekeeping.  While Hou Yi was out hunting one day, one of his followers tried to steel it.  To stop the man Chang’e swallowed it.  She thus became immortal and floated up to the moon, where she lives with the moon’s other resident: the Jade Rabbit.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival people spend time admiring the moon and eating mooncakes.  Which are pastries stuffed with various fillings, they are round to represent the shape of the full moon.  The more traditional fillings are salted egg yolk and lotus paste.

To celebrate and learn about it I set up a mooncake play dough invitation to play.

Make sure you follow my play dough board on Pinterest for more ideas.  Don’t forget to save the pin for later.

To make your own moon cake play dough you will need:

• A saucepan
• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of water
• ¼ cup of salt
• 1 tbsp of oil
• 2 tbsp of cream of tartar
• Food colouring
• Moon cake mould

Add all the ingredients to a saucepan and mix together on a low heat, stirring continuously until it forms a dough.  Once you have the dough, divide it into two parts (one bigger than the other).  Dye the bigger section a brownish colour (although traditional moon cakes are your “normal” pastry colour, you can get them in a variety of colours).

Dye the other section a different colour to create the filling.

Then set it up as an invitation to play, with a moon cake mould, for your little ones to play with.

If you enjoyed using this moon cake play dough invitation to play, make sure you check out my 3D Autumn tree craft.

Pin for later: