PETALING JAYA, Aug 10 — Have you ever had the feeling that you’re late to the game? When you thought there was no rush and thus took your time only to discover that they had run out of everything?
If the game is mooncakes and the race is to enjoy some interesting renditions before the sellers stop taking orders, then it might pay to be a bit kiasu this year.
Yes, I have decided to join the ranks of those who pre-order their mooncakes.
It is in this early bird spirit that I am sharing a few appealing options for mooncakes this year, from traditional to snow skin, fruit flavoured to more savoury choices.
Let me begin with the One That Got Away, or the mooncake I missed out on last year. I had long been a fan of Eddie Tan’s alcohol-infused cakes but I didn’t realise his popular, PJ-based Cake Tella also produces a line of alcoholic ice cream mooncakes every year.
This year, Tan has come up with two different sets - Reunion and Celebration.
He explains,“Why Reunion? Mooncakes always revolve around family reunions, which are rare with our current city lifestyle where everyone is busy. For our Celebration set, it’s more premium hence it’s more suitable for gifting.”
Cake Tella’s Reunion set includes Guinness Draught Gula Melaka, Roku Gin Sakura Raspberry, Baileys Valrhona Almond and the alcohol-free Milo Nugget. The young-at-heart Tan adds, “The Milo Nugget is my favourite amongst all!”
The Celebration set also features the Guinness Draught Gula Melaka and Roku Gin Sakura Raspberry, but introduces two new premium flavours - Martell Noblige Orange and Martell VSOP Coffee Hazelnut. (Cognac and orange sounds like a perfect pairing.)
For fans of snow skin mooncakes, home-based pastry maker Sweet Castle has launched their Osmanthus Lemon Honey Snow Skin Mooncake.
While better known for their “Giant Mooncakes” (pie-sized constructions stuffed with mochi, meat floss and three salted egg yolks each!), Sweet Castle must have customers with lighter appetites in mind this year.
Their mildly sweet snow skin mooncake has a predominantly honey lemon flavour, infused with homemade osmanthus sauce; the chewy snow skin is mixed with crushed osmanthus for further floral notes.
Extra kawaii points go to Sweet Castle’s colourful Rabbit Snow Skin Mooncakes; the shape is an homage to the Mid-Autumn Festival’s iconic Jade Rabbit. The fillings come in six flavours: Lotus, Emerald, Red Bean, Dragon Fruit, Chocolate and Mango.
How about looking farther East? For a more Japanese take, gifting company Bow + Ribbons also offers Mid-Autumn Wagashi on top of their usual baked mooncakes. Typically served with sencha (green tea), wagashi is a classic Japanese confection made from mochi and red bean paste.
Bow + Ribbons’s Mid-Autumn Wagashi comes in six flavours - Hojicha, Hazelnut Chocolate, Sakura, Matcha, Black Sesame and Osmanthus - and are available in sets of four or six wagashi, with accompanying accoutrements such as a tea canister, lanterns and a two-tiered drawer box.
Even traditional bakeries have jumped on the bandwagon with more modern interpretations.
Alongside their traditional double yolk baked mooncakes, JB stalwart Tong Ah Bakery has released a series of Japanese vegan-friendly mooncakes, or Momoyama Mooncakes with flavours such as Matcha with Red Bean Mochi and Gula Melaka With Coconut Flakes.
Their bestsellers are their Momoyama Fruity snow skin mooncakes with fruit-based fillings. The sextet are Lychee, Pineapple, Honeydew, Grapefruit, Durian and Blueberry.
What sets these apart might not be the flavours but the shapes of the snow skin mooncakes which mimic the fruits used in the fillings. Adorable!
But sometimes we prefer our traditional bakeries to remain just that - traditional. Ipoh’s Ching Han Guan certainly sticks to what is tried and tested with their Teochew style Walnut Lotus Mooncake (Cháozhōu hétáo liánróng) and the lesser-known Pearly Yam (Yù ní zhēnzhū).
Even their classic Mixed Nut mooncake (Jīn tuǐ wǔ rén) gets a bit of a lift from the use of roasted ham. But the house specialty has to be Ching Han Guan’s now iconic BBQ Meat Lotus Mooncake with Egg Yolk (Ròugān dànhuáng liánróng).
Indeed, what could be better than a savoury-sweet trio of smoky bakkwa, smooth lotus paste and rich salted egg yolk? This is the stuff (gluttonous, gastronomic) dreams are made of.
Is it a bit too early for mooncakes, you ask? After all, this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival isn’t till September 17, a little over a month away.
Maybe. But if you’re like me and prefer to suffer less stress (translation: getting chewed out by loved ones for missing the cut-off date for orders), then there’s no downside to receiving your mooncakes early.
All the more time to enjoy them... and if they run out, you still have time to order another round!
All the above mooncakes are available for pre-order/order now at the following websites:
- Cake Tella: https://www.caketella.com/
- Sweet Castle: https://www.instagram.com/s.weet_castle/
- Bow + Ribbons: https://www.bowandribbons.co/
- Tong Ah Bakery: https://tongahbakery.com/
- Ching Han Guan: https://www.chg.my/
