Mooncakes are often compared to the Christmas fruitcake, a traditional dessert seen as something mostly elders enjoy. But in the Bay Area, the popularity of mooncakes is on the rise, with bakers making modern versions as well.

These treats — palm-sized baked goods typically filled with a rich paste and a salted duck egg yolk, covered in a thin crust — are eaten for the Mid-Autumn Festival, which takes place Sept. 10 this year. For many Asian cultures that celebrate holidays based on the lunar calendar, this is the second most important holiday after Lunar New Year.

Many bakeries sell the most traditional Cantonese-style versions filled with dense lotus seed or red bean pastes, though some branch out with taro, pineapple or durian flavors. There are regional variations, such as Vietnamese “snow skin” cakes that are white and nearly translucent, made with glutinous rice flour; the pork-filled Yunnan (a province in China) style; and flaky, thousand-layer crust mooncakes. Expect to pay about $5 per mooncake, but gift sets with beautiful packaging can cost much more.

Top photo: A baker brushes a layer of egg wash onto mooncakes at Garden Bakery in San Francisco. Above: Customers congregate inside Garden Bakery in the weeks leading up to the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Bakers say the increased interest in mooncakes — the mainstreaming of them, if you will — is due to nostalgia, the desire to connect with traditions and the flurry of home baking during the pandemic. Kristina Cho, author of James Beard award-winning cookbook “Mooncakes and Milk Bread,” also pointed to more general awareness thanks to media representation, such as the 2020 Netflix animated film “Over the Moon.”

Cho said she sees the evolution, and embrace, of mooncakes in the United States, particularly in the Bay Area from Asian American bakers.

“I think it’s all connected with the Asian American community feeling proud of their culture more,” she said.

While many bakeries sell mooncakes year-round, the month leading up to the Mid-Autumn Festival is especially busy. More than a dozen shops in San Francisco’s Chinatown prepare this specialty dessert, according to Tan Chow of the Chinatown Community Development Center.

Siu Mui Mah, owner of Garden Bakery, hands over a bag of pastries to a customer in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022.

Baker Mr. Zhen carries a tray of mooncakes into an oven for a second bake at Garden Bakery in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022.

This includes Garden Bakery, which opened in 1986.

On a recent afternoon, owner Siu Mui Mah was getting ready for the season while customers gathered around tables with dan tat (egg tarts) and freshly baked pineapple buns, sipping on hot coffee or tea.

Two bakers formed their own small assembly line while a vat of golden syrup, a key ingredient made from water, lemon and sugar, boiled away. One baker rolled out the dough, made from cake flour, lye water, oil and golden syrup, then broke off pieces. She rolled those pieces out with a rolling pin, not unlike the process of making dumpling skins, then quickly wrapped them around baseball-sized orbs of filling — red bean paste or lotus seed paste, and some stuffed with one or two salted egg yolks to signify the moon.

Baker Mr. Zhen releases a mooncake dough from a pneumatic cake mold at Garden Bakery in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. Traditionally made with heavy wooden molds and reserved to be eaten with friends and family during the annual Mid-Autumn Festival, the custom air-powered molds are physically less strenuous and more efficient as the bakery is preparing to increase production to meet the fast-approaching festival.

White lotus and egg yolk mooncakes are seen in a display case at Garden Bakery in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022.

She passed them to another baker, who put each one inside a circular mold that’s hooked to an air compressor, gave it a firm pat or two, then pressed a button that released the entire mooncake onto a sheet tray. Each mooncake wore an ornate stamp on top with Chinese characters stating the name of the filling as well as the name of the bakery. (The bakery stopped using the handheld wooden molds about 10 years ago, saying the pneumatic mold is easier on the workers’ shoulders and more efficient.)

Once trays were full and bathed in an egg wash, the baker popped them in the oven for 45 minutes. Then they got another, lighter coat of egg wash and baked for a shorter time at a lower temperature.

While these traditional Cantonese-style mooncakes are time-consuming to make, Bay Area bakeries are also experimenting and debuting modernized versions. Bakers say they remember eating mooncakes with their grandparents and other elders, and they want to pay homage to tradition but with their own twists on fillings and colors.

Baker Mr. Zhen dusts mooncake dough balls before each is pressed into a mold.

Oakland cocktail bar Viridian is hosting a Mid-Autumn Festival celebration Sept. 7-30, which will feature executive pastry chef Vince Bugtong’s snow skin mooncake filled with a custard made of salted egg yolk and white chocolate.

Annie’s T Cakes, a home bakery in Oakland, has been selling vegan mooncakes since last year. This year, she debuted a new flavor: matcha with strawberry filling. The mooncakes, alongside her vegan Taiwanese pineapple cakes and almond cookies, are available throughout the year.

Andrew J.K. Hong co-owns and runs Van’s Bakery, a Vietnamese spot in San Jose, which offers traditional Cantonese-style mooncakes and Vietnamese snow skin mooncakes. But he’s starting to branch off from his family’s operation and sell nouveau-style mooncakes. Hong’s mooncakes, sold online and known as DrooTheBaker on Instagram, include flavors like chocolate hazelnut, mochi and burnt almond.

Inverted sugar syrup for mooncakes is being cooked in a pot at Garden Bakery in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022.

Boxes of mooncake fillings are seen stacked at Garden Bakery in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022.

Lotus seed paste fillings are seen on a tray during mooncake production at Garden Bakery in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022.

A slice of freshly-baked mooncake with lotus seed paste is seen at Garden Bakery in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco, California Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022.

Although he tries to use less traditional mooncake ingredients, he said he didn’t want to manipulate them too much. “At the end of the day, it’s still a mooncake,” Hong said. “I’m pushing it a little bit … and being creative with it.”

Cookbook author Cho was recently boiling a pot of red bean to make mooncakes with her mom in her East Bay home. She makes both traditional and experimental mooncakes, but she doesn’t veer too far in order to not compromise the “structural integrity” of the mooncake shape.

While Cho’s grandparents ran a family restaurant where her parents also worked, they had never made mooncakes at home. Cooking alongside Cho was the first time her mom made mooncakes.

“It’s an interesting role reversal,” Cho said. “It’s rare that I can actually teach her something.”

Pedestrians walk past Garden Bakery on Jackson Street in the Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco.

Cantonese interpreting help from Stephen Lam of The Chronicle and Kifer Hu and Marcus Situ of Self-Help for the Elderly.

Find traditional mooncakes at one of many family-owned Chinese bakeries or grocery stores in the Bay Area such as 99 Ranch Market and Costco.

Annie's T Cakes: Order online for shipping or pickup at three locations in Oakland, including the Grand Lake Farmers Market, 746 Grand Ave. www.anniestcakes.com

Garden Bakery: 765 Jackson St., San Francisco. www.gardenbakerysf.com

Mooncakes by DrooTheBaker: Order online for shipping or pickup at Van's Bakery, 1824 Tully Road, San Jose. www.desserts-by-droo.com

Viridian: Sept. 7-30. 2216 Broadway, Oakland. viridianbar.com

Momo Chang (she/her) is a Bay Area freelance writer. Email: food@sfchronicle.com