Cakes From The Moon!!!

Yes! It's that time of the month again each year according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, the 8th Moon and 15 days of the Mooncake Festival! For 2008, this special date falls on 14, September, 2008 around Autumn Equinox or Mid-Autumn festival. This is the only time of the year I can taste lots of mooncakes that no longer made in rounds but in squares and other beautiful shapes with assorted flavours too. Besides the traditional flavours there are also Toffee, Black Sesame, Coconut, Mango, Dragon Fruit (Pithaya), Black Forest. Raspberry, Cheese, Lavender to Tiramisu! Goshhh, and the beautiful boxes that you have to put in those mooncakes as gifts to friends and families. For me, I like to collect the boxes or containers of this mooncakes as well. What I did with the tins and boxes? I kept my precious tea leaves like Pu Erh, Oolong, Gyokuro, Sencha and my teacups. Here's a little samples of the 2008 Mooncake collection available in my country and you can find more information about this festival celebrated by Asian Chinese wherever they are. These are baked mooncakes. I hope to post other types of mooncakes which made from Agar-Agar and Mochi, etc with mango, chocolate, litchee, yogurt fillings!

The boxes that came with the mooncakes.

This is Osmanthus Mooncake. Next to it is one of my Yixing Zhu Ni teapots, it's a special commemorative piece (I forgot what's the translation of the carvings of Calligraphy on its surface.) The size is for 2 people and as big as my clenched fist... I love having Green Tea and Oolongs in Red Clay teapots.

Side view of the mooncakes with ridges... behind the mooncake are 2 of my antique handmade and handpainted tea cups collection.

Inside of the Osmanthus Mooncake with single egg yolk (Salted Duck Egg), peeled melon seeds and osmanthus flowers mixed with Lotus Seed paste. The little streaks/dots are the flowers.

This one is Chestnut With Jingsa...

The brownish part is Chestnut puree/paste with melon seeds. The centre is mashed egg yolk from Salted Duck Egg. This mashed method is called 'Jingsa'.

There are many choices of mooncakes available until I got confused! You can read the following links here and here - you will see what I meant :-D Oh, also the colorful lanterns made of papers or plastic. I also like the Mooncake Moulds used. The intricate patterns of the moulds were carved out from a block of wood that made each mould an art itself! I'm going to get some and frame it up! Antique Mooncake Mould are expensive due to it's handmade process. Nowadays, I'm not sure if it's hand carved or machine carved but there are many choice of moulds available. You can even find plastic moulds, great for Mooncake Jellies and comes in shapes of Hello Kitty, Mickey Mouse and Winnie The Pooh! Surprisingly, Malaysia has been noted as largest variety of mooncakes supplier. For this year, this company is my favourite!