A few new mooncakes that I like

black sesame snow skin rum raisin lin yoong
has a very mellow sweet taste that is both cooling and refreshing.
Almost taste like ice-cream, the centre filling goes excellently
with the seasame seed 'cold skin'. One of the best for new
mooncakes.



'Salt' moon cakes (suyan yuebing) is the one on the top right hand corner,
which has a delicate sweet, salty and clean taste that is like no other.
You'll have to taste it to understand. It doesn't bear with the extra rich
taste like a lot of other traditional mooncakes. Yet it has a classic
taste and bite that will linger in your mouth even after a long while.



black diamond mooncake bamboo charcoal
has a single yolk in the centre with lotus paste and a little mix of nuts.
Covered in edible bamboo charcoal, the taste bears contemporary flavour that
is now considered as one of the most popular mooncakes in the market.




5 kernel moon cake (wuren yuebing)
is healthy as it is delicious. As the name implies, the mooncake consists of 5 differnt kinds of seeds
and nuts chopped into finer pieces. The mixture is then mixed with maltose to hold them up together in a paste.
This mixture can differ from dialect groups in the Chinese race. Some add in delicate pieces of jinhua huotui (ham)
and further sweeten with wintermelon. It is usually the best among the traditional mooncakes
and it is usually the most expensive too.

I didn't have a lot of time enjoying the Moon cake festival this year.
But it seems that I have a few very nice surprises for mooncakes that
cheer my days up. --- Karen Fu

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Mooncake Festival | CUMI & CIKI: Monkey Adventures, Travel and Food!

Mooncake Festival

August 9, 2010

The Mooncake festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th moon, of the Chinese Lunar Calendar every year, meaning, it is just around the corner.

When you wish upon a moon..

In my country, this is a big deal for the Chinese who look forward to eating these little delectable ‘parcels from the moon’. No that’s not even completely accurate. Most people in Malaysia, even the non-Chinese look forward to eating Mooncake and this is the time where beautifully packaged Mooncakes are exchanged as gifts and tokens of appreciation. Many Chinese restaurants now have the  ‘halal’ version of these sweet Chinese desserts and to tell you the truth they taste so good it is hard to tell which ones are halal and which ones are not these days. Not only that, the new buzz is for restaurants and mooncake makers to try and top each other in producing new contemporary flavours. From solid chocolate mooncakes to unusual yam or charcoal baked flavours, you name it, they’ve thought of it.. and now, it’s for sale!
Anyway, if you are wondering how it all started, the Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival is believed to have originated from the ancient ceremony of Sacrificing to the Moon Goddess for the year’s end harvest. This is when families return to celebrate and give thanks for the year’s bounty.

Why the moon?

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festivity for the Han people of China plus the other minority tribes. The custom of worshiping the moon can be traced back for yoinks. The Han would sacrifice to the Moon Goddess in thanksgiving for the year’s crops and harvest. Families would return from the fields to celebrate – this was normally a time of reunion and mooncakes would be baked and exchanged as gifts. It was a really cool tradition to give 13 mooncakes as a gift because this symbolized a full year. Why 13? well, the extra one represents the leap year (my ancestors were really smart people!)

How did the Mooncake Festival become so widely celebrated?

During the Yuan dynasty, China was ruled by the Mongolians. Rebels plotted to overthrow the ruling government and they did this by baking tactical warfare instructions into the mooncakes. . As the Mid-Autumn Festival drew near, the rebels ordered cakes baked and distributed throughout the villages.
Needless to say, the tactics worked and on the night of the Festival, the rebels with the help of local villagers, successfully overthrew the government! After this, it was the reign of the Ming Dynasty as we know it. And that my friend, is the true meaning behind the Mooncake.
So the next time you indulge in a piece of mooncake, make sure you gaze up at the moon and contemplate just how pivotal this innocent-looking, sweet dessert was in carving the fate and history of the Chinese.

Mooncake is celebration but mooncake is also creation..

Red Yeast Sweet Potato
Red yeast filling with sweet potato skin and paste. Red yeast has an ability to lower cholesterol but don’t ask about the sugar!

Espresso Chestnut
An extremely creative coffee skin and paste with chestnut to add a nutty flavour to the mooncake.. talk about getting nuts over mooncake!

German Black Forest
Chocolate skin with blackcurrant and chocolate chip.. super sweet and chocolate-y this one!


Charcoal-Baked Yam
Delicious yam paste with tantalizing bamboo-charcoal skin.. one of my favourites!

Red Bean Green Tea
This is the classic mooncake with a read bean paste and green tea center.. only for green tea lovers.

The Mooncakes featured in this post are from the Equatorial Hotel Kuala Lumpur, and they include both classic as well as contemporary flavours. Contemporary flavours range from RM18-19 per piece whilst the Original range from RM14-20 the most expensive being the double yolk. All these mooncakes are all HALAL.

Finally..

this Mooncake Festival.. make sure you balance your Yin and Yang..

Bamboo Hazelnut a unique combination of bamboo-charcoal skin with hazelnut paste and chocolate goes hand in hand with.. Charcoal-Baked Yam a gorgeous yam paste with an amazing, aromatic bamboo-charcoal skin.
These two were by far, Cumi & Ciki’s favourites!


Our review on the Blogger’s Event at the Spanking new Golden Phoenix Chinese Restaurant at Equatorial Hotel, up next. The food was so good, it deserves a post all on its own.. stay tuned!

Add:

HOTEL EQUATORIAL KUALA LUMPUR

Jalan Sultan Ismail

50250 Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

Tel: +60 3 2161 7777

Fax: +60 3 2161 9020

Check out their mooncake homepage here

 Google Maps to Equatorial Hotel

Posted on Monday, August 9th, 2010 under All Posts, Chinese cuisine, Culture, Desserts, Food Type, Misc. Subscribe to this comment feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

via cumidanciki.com

Moon cake hybrids always fascinate me. The entire making process involves not only the style and image of the packagings and the entire look of the mooncakes; but also the baking skills that are involved. Many other nationalities have been trying to emulate the mooncake making process and come up with variants in different ingredients like ice cream, cookies, wine, fruit, cream, nuts, egg yolk, etc.
However the classic ones are still the traditional ones. But once in a while, we need some special varieties. So enjoy the selection above. I'm having mine for brunch. Of course with some tea/fruit juice.

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Interesting Packaging / mooncakes Design for (Mid Autumn Festival 2010

Interesting packaging made of wood and done in the form of a Chinese lantern. Simple and considerate thought for the environment where the packaging is a durable and functionable lantern after the mooncakes are taken out. The price is much less than what I was thinking. Around the price of S$60 including 3/4 mooncakes.

Haagen Das' innovative use of ice-cream and chocolate turns these mooncakes into another dimension.

Delightful colours makes these 'mini cakes' looks absolutely tantalising - Japanese style.

Regent Hotel's mooncake packaging design for their own mooncakes. The flower shaped plastic piece is used as a decoration that perks up the entire plain coloured packaging. It doesn't waste resources and both packaging and the plastic piece could be shifted and use in other packaging uses, should the need arises.

                                                                   
Authentic piece ....

Confectionaries to go with the mid authum festivities. Showing above are French pastries, cakes, tarts...etc

These are not a chest of drawers, the furniture style. These are chest of drawers made of card and plastic 'jade' for mooncakes..

All the above ar behind this entrance with the Chinese character 'Autumn'. (Qiu) Enjoy !