The Founder of Egg Custard Mooncake

Master Chef - Yip Wing Wah

Chef Yip, Mr. Yip Wing Wah, Hong Kong pastry chef, has over 50 years of experience in the catering industry. In 1986, he joined the Spring Moon of The Peninsula Hong Kong. He has been the Master Chef of the Dim Sum Department for more than 30 years. He is the founder of the famous Peninsula “Egg Custard Mooncake” and is known as the leader of the Hong Kong moon cake industry.

After retiring in 2012, Chef Yip became the “Dessert Ambassador” of the Peninsula Hotel Group. He often went to the Peninsula Hotel to teach the techniques of making snacks and mooncakes, and was named “The Ip Man of the Dim Sum”.

In 2018, he returned to the catering industry and became the master of the cakes of Imperial Enterprises Holdings Limited. He launched the mooncake series, made traditional moon cakes, and the Lava mooncakes series. At the same time, he created the first Hong Kong Lava Sesame mooncake, and the mooncake from the “Egg Custard Era” into a brand new “Lava Era.”

Juvenile period

Chef Yip’s father also worked in the catering industry, and he was the largest in the family, so he entered the business when he was young. In 1966, at the age of 13, he worked as an apprentice at Longmen Restaurant in Wanchai. He started to learn to make snacks, got up at 3 or 4 in the morning to get ready for work, and worked more than 14 hours a day. At that time, there was no special teaching. Chef Yip produced and studied with the master craftsmanship, and the craftsmanship gradually matured.

 

Peninsula era

In 1986, 33-year-old Chef Yip joined the Spring Moon, the Chinese restaurant of The Peninsula Hotel, where he served as the Master Chef of the Dim Sum Department and was promoted to become a five-star hotel master. He is the main producer of traditional snacks, including pork-baked crisps, shrimp dumplings, spring rolls, etc. At the time, the snack department produced about 10,000 to 12,000 snacks a day. In response to the season, Chef Yip will add new meanings to traditional snacks, such as selling abalone, pine mushrooms and other expensive ingredients, using salted bamboo juice to make salty water and amaranth juice to make dumplings.

Egg Custard Mooncake boom

In 1986, when Chef Yip was in the first year of the Spring Moon, it was near the Mid-Autumn Festival. In response to the company’s request, Chef Yip made some special foods for the guests who enjoyed the Mid-Autumn Festival. He referenced the production of Western cakes to make us of Egg Custard for filling, using butter for the cake’s skin, creating the Mini Egg Custard mooncake, became the founder of Egg Custard Mooncake [13] [12] [14]. In the first year, only 2,000 boxes were made for regular customers, which was very popular. In the following year (1987), the hotel officially launched the Mini Egg Custard Mooncake for sale, and soon sold it all. This incident caused media coverage.

 

Spreading the craft

In 2012, Chef Yip retired and became the “Hong Kong-style Dim Sum Ambassador” of the Peninsula Hotel Group. From time to time, he went to Shanghai, Paris, Bangkok and other peninsula hotels, and passed nearly 50 years of experience to the Peninsula hotel chef team and professors and also spread of the Egg Custard Mooncake making method.

 

Re-emergence

In 2017, Chef Yip returned to the catering industry, joined the Imperial Enterprises Holdings Limited to become the master of the Imperial Patisserie, and continued to develop different mooncake flavors. In addition to the traditional Golden lotus seed paste with double egg yolks mooncake and traditional White lotus seed paste with double egg yolks mooncake, the classic Egg Custard mooncake, etc., Chef Yip has also produced a series of Lava mooncakes, including Lava Custard mooncake, and the ‘Lava Sesame mooncake”, which also caused media reports.

Michelin Two-Star Cake and Pastry’s Master

Master Chef - Lai Wing Koon

Chef Yip Wing Wah’s only official apprentice

For more than ten years, he served as the head chef of the Shanghai Peninsula Hotel Dim Sum Department, and founded the Shanghai Peninsula Hotel Dim Sum Department.Has served as the head chef at star-rated hotels around the world (Hong Kong Peninsula, Bangkok Peninsula, Shanghai Peninsula, Malaysia, etc.), and is familiar with the food culture and ingredients of many places.

 

Michelin two-star cake and pastry’s master

Expertise in making Chinese pastry, blending Western ingredients into Chinese cakes and pastries. The work experience of hotels in various countries has made him specialize in integrating Western-style quality ingredients into Chinese-style cakes and pastries.

 

Representatives of research and innovation

Chef Lai likes to study the ingredients and do research and development according to the characteristics of the ingredients, which brings surprise effects.Combining the characteristics of ingredients and Cake and Pastry’s techniques, Chef Lai has developed a variety of flavored Lava mooncakes with Chef Yip.