Moon cakes, also known as Hu cakes, palace cakes, small cakes, moon cakes, reunion cakes, etc., have a long history in China. Eating mooncakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty and originated from the national moon worship ceremony. According to legend, in ancient China, emperors had a ritual system of worshiping the sun in spring and the moon in autumn. Among the people, there is also the custom of worshiping or offering sacrifices to the moon every Mid-Autumn Festival in August. People offer moon cakes, various fruits, etc. to the Moon God. After the Moon God "enjoys" the sacrifices, people then cut the moon cakes and eat them in order of age. It is said that they can receive blessings and protection from the god. "It's just that the mooncakes at this time were not called mooncakes."

When Zhang Qian of the Han Dynasty was on his mission to the Western Regions, he introduced sesame seeds and walnuts, which added auxiliary materials to the production of mooncakes. At this time, the moon cakes with walnut kernels as fillings appeared. The round cake is called "Hu cake".

During the Tang Dynasty, mooncakes were first recorded. During the Song Dynasty, there were more and more records about "moon cakes". Su Dongpo has a poem that says: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, with crispy and sweet fillings in the middle." In addition, the first record of the name "moon cakes" was also in the Song Dynasty, but moon cakes were not yet popular at that time. It was not until the Ming Dynasty that mooncakes truly became the official Mid-Autumn Festival food and gradually became popular among the people. In various books of the Ming Dynasty, a large number of descriptions of eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival began to appear. During the Qing Dynasty, the craftsmanship of mooncakes was greatly improved. Not only were they exquisitely made, but the varieties were also increasing. Mooncakes for the moon can be seen everywhere.