Thursday, September 11, 2008

An affair with mooncakes

Mid-autumn festival ~ time of the year whereby mooncakes are making their presence in the society. As I used to grow up in a kampong (yes, you're reading it correctly, i stayed in Lim Chu Kang area since birth till aged 6), mid autumn festival is one of the festivals I have fond memories of (beside CNY) .... lighting candles in the courtyard, hanging paper lanterns on the tree branches while I carry the battery-operated hello-kitty (with music) lantern and playing with my cousins.... eating mooncakes and pomelo, awww, those were the days :)

Anyway, started this year's mooncake "appreciation" with a sample packaging from Raffles Hotel

Baked (mini) mooncake with pine nuts, macadamia nuts and lotus paste. I love the crunchiness of the pine nuts though I am not a fan of traditional mooncakes. However, Raffles Hotel nv fails to impress me with their Snowskin mooncakes with Champagne Truffle & Ganache :)

All courtesy of Leecher :) At this point, you guys must be thinking he is sooooo sweet rite? No lo, he bought it for my mum, cuz my mum likes the mooncakes, wa ha ha .... ok, to give him credit, he bought a box of Raffles Cognac Truffle for me to try too (awww....so sweet :P *pukes*) I totally love the snowskin, ever so soft though it has been in the fridge for 2-3 days. Packaging-wise, not so impressive but my mum likes the purple box (given that its her fave colour)
Raffles Hotel even hopped onto the bandwagon (apart from Goodwork park hotel and many more) to introduce environmental-friendly bags for their mooncakes, not a bad idea @ all, walking advertisement all year round if people chose to use their bags.

I bought the fairmont snowskin selection for my mum to try out

Nice packaging, in the cheongsam series. They comes in 2 different colours - striking fuschia and turquoise boxes (for the youngsters), red and gold (for the older generation). The box even comes with a mirror, pretty pretty :)

8 mini snowskin mooncakes selection, the colours quite pretty rite?

4 flavours to choose from - strawberry & dark chocolate, Rum & Rasin, Champagne Truffle & Chocolate Ganache and Bailey's chocolate. Hmm... have to say that though the packaging looks impressive, but mooncake-wise, there's still room for improvement. The snowskin tends to harden in just 2 days. Champagne Truffe was not bad, but pales in comparison with that from Raffles Hotel. Bailey's and Rum & Raisin was a tad too strong for my liking. My vote will go to strawberry & dark chocolate, though it tastes quite sweet (perhaps due to the lotus paste).

Besides the snowskin mooncakes, I also placed orders for traditional baked mooncakes for Leecher's family and my corporate clients (thanks to FMQ for the corporate deals)

Red & Gold packaging for my corporate clients - decided that it will look more presentable :)

Mooncake from swissotel, shaped like a peach :)

Peach-shaped Single Yolk & Macadamia Nuts in White Lotus Paste

The only thing I like abt tradition mooncake - egg yolk! High in cholesterol, but heck ... :)

Another box of mooncakes that I got for Leecher's family: Kia Hiang snowskin selection.

Wooden packaging somehow stands out differently amongst the crowd of paper/aluminium packing. It sure weights a lot more though. My hands nearly went numb carrying 4 such boxes back to the office

9 mini snowskin mooncakes in 5 different flavours - durian (as per Leecher's request), green tea, blueberry & cheese, chocolate with macadamia nuts and rum, black & white sesame mousse. Apparently, they're quite famous for their durian mooncakes (though I didn't know of this brand till FMQ introduced it to me). Very generous with their fillings as well, it literally oozes out once you sliced the mooncakes :)

I got a box of Kia Hiang traditional low sugar mooncakes for my great-grandmother

3 different flavours - red lotus paste with yolk, orange lotus paste with walnut & yolk, rose lotus paste with macadamia & yolk.

The FENICS team got a box of mooncake to call our own, courtesy of Eric :)

Had to rack my brains to think of what mooncake to get from the booths @ Change Alley. Finally, settled on Peach Blosoms

4 flavours - Jap sweet potato, durian, black sesame and avocado. The black sesame rocks while Andrew prefers the avocado.

It's time for me to leech on others' mooncakes .... (just borrowed them to take pics, hahaa)

Bakerzin Mooncakes

Tower Club Mooncakes

Think I have had enough of mooncakes for this year, till next yr :)

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