We take a break from the Ramadan Bazaars since today is the Mid Autumn Festival. It's time to have those sit down family dinners and if you have young kids in the family, take them around the neighbourhood for a lantern procession. However with the hazy skies we have now, I'm not sure how one can eat mooncakes, sip Chinese tea from small cups and savour the full moon.
Last year, I confessed I am not a fan of the mooncake as I find the lotus paste too sweet for my liking. Hence when it came to comparing mooncakes offered in town, I was clueless but one of my friends conducted extensive survey and research for her ultimate mooncake. She reckons the best mooncake she has tasted is from Li Yen, Ritz Carlton Hotel and if you fancy durian, the Snow Skin one from Mandarin Oriental Hotel is great too. Thumbs up went to Tong Kee Brothers Confectionery's Koong Chye Peng i.e. those biscuits made from just the mooncake skin. My personal favourite every year are the Heong Far Biscuits from Foh San as it combines the mooncake skin and melon seeds for a yummy snack. Give that a try as it's delicious.
During this season, I tend to go crazy about jelly mooncakes. I guess ever since I discovered them last year, I have been hooked. Last year, I made Cappuccino, Mango and Strawberry flavours but this year, I started experimenting with different ideas. One unique one was the Longan Jelly Mooncake with one whole canned longan in the middle to represent the egg yolk. However I dished the idea after a few trials since it was kinda difficult to cut even though visually it looked nice. This was replaced instead with chopped longan bits which tasted better. You can make a similar one with canned lychees that taste great too. Another one that made the cut was the Mocha and Chocolate Jelly Mooncakes - the Mocha one has a Milo and Nescafe to give it the chocolatey taste.
Not all the mooncakes I experimented made the cut - the Pink and White Dragonfruit Jelly Mooncake I made above looked great but I felt the taste was too flat. I tried combining White Coffee with Chocolate but the taste wasn't too right either so I guess it's another year of research and development on new kinds of Jelly Mooncakes I want to make. It's actually quite fun to think of new flavours and combinations.
One more item I thought I will share with you - this is called Wan Pin Kuih or Yuen Pei Kau. It seems in olden days, this was used to celebrate Mid Autumn Festival before Mooncakes. This white cake made from a combination of glutinous rice flour and rice flour is sticky and gooey once you pop it in your mouth. Traditionally it's wrapped in pink paper but during the festival, special versions are made in round shapes and chopped with the moon goddess' image.
Happy Mid Autumn Festival and do enjoy the festivities tonight.
16 comments:
boo, nice jelly mooncakes and i definitely like da 'Yuen Pin Kau'! yum yum..
Happy Mid Autumn. First year this year I did not have mooncakes free from the office.
yes i miss those white cakes in pink paper. u also have them shape in discs with colourful pics on them
hey boo.
Did u know ur ramadan bazaar pix are being circulated all over the net?
u shud ask the perpetrator for the royalty ;)
i love wan pien koe!!! these days the round disc ones tasted so hard unlike before where they're soft and chewy
Happy Mid Autumn! I wish I was 10 again so I can walk around the neighborhood with a fish or dragon shaped tanglung swinging in my hands... :) Ah, memories...
the dragonfruit jelly mooncake is so, so pretty! pity about the taste, though. maybe more sugar?
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you!
OMG..the jelly mooncake looks delicious ya!!!
yupe as for me i dun really like those original mooncake...i prefer the jelly mooncake and the "ping pi" moon cake...:)
yea..wanted to wish u happy mid autumn festival!
Nice post Boo. Check out my MA-rated post on mooncakes if you have the time. It's er.. quite different from most food posts heh.
can i year for it instead of my wife ?
I think I like the last one best :)
flymeng - I love tanglungs too. Had the itch to get one of my own that day but I guess I will look silly in a lantern procession among the kids.
eugene - not much of a mooncake fan though so not that many pixs and write up abt it.
meiyen - I must try yr dragonfruit version, looks interesting too.
flower - That's sad! Hope nxt year they give you lots more to compensate for this yr.
lanatir - yeah, I saw those in the sundry shops. Shld have snapped a pix of it for all of you.
watson - never mind, share the food around. I'm sure there's lots of hungry people around town.
babe - this one was pretty nice and chewy. Kinda grows on you.
pinkity - yeah, so do I. Had so much fun during those days.
may - Happy Mid Autumn Festival to you too! Yeah, I think it needed a good dose of sugar to make it right but then it will be frightfully unhealthy.
ping - Happy Mid Autumn Festival to you! Try making jelly mooncakes, they are addictive after you tried the first one.
jackson - tastes very much like dragonfruit i.e. not much taste. It needs more sugar I think.
d - sounds interesting. Thxs for the tip and Happy Mid Autumn to you too. Am sure you are all celebrating in a big fashion down south.
foodcrazee - er, not too sure abt that statement, did you mean you wanted some for yr wife?
pablopabla - yeah, it's not as sweet and sickly like the rest of the mooncakes. defintely a better idea.
i just discovered your blog via http://eatingasia.typepad.com/ and love your pictures--such a feast for my eyes. i am a singapore girl living in the US now and miss all the good food at home. i've never even seen jelly mooncakes before. gotta find some to try here. thanks for sharing!
mmm mooncakes.. ive never seen jelly mooncakes here in australia! are they cheaper than normal mooncakes?
piegirl - glad u skipped over from Robyn's blog. Jelly mooncakes is a relatively new thing in Msia - easier to make that the real stuff and less sweeter.
fuschia - sounds like a very cool lantern. Mine was always the fish as I loved the shape.
chocolatesuze - they're cheaper than the normal ones because they don't have lotus paste. Not exactly sure how much normal ones cost as there's a range. These ones cost abt RM6 to RM8 per mooncake based on what I have seen at the shops.
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