MOONCAKES

It's MOONCAKES time here in Singapore and the town is chock full of them. What is a mooncake you ask? Well, here's a little background on them...

Mooncakes are Chinese pastries traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. The festival is for lunar worship and moon watching; moon cakes are regarded as an indispensable delicacy on this occasion. Mooncakes are offered between friends or on family gatherings while celebrating the festival, one of the three most important Chinese festivals. Typical mooncakes are round or rectangular pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. A thick filling usually made from lotus seed paste is surrounded by a relatively thin (2-3 mm) crust and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs. Mooncakes are rich, heavy, and dense compared with most Western cakes and pastries. They are usually eaten in small wedges accompanied by Chinese tea.

Most mooncakes consist of a thin tender skin enveloping a sweet, dense filling. The mooncake may contain one or more whole salted egg yolks in its center to symbolize the full moon. Very rarely, mooncakes are also served steamed or fried. Traditional mooncakes have an imprint on top consisting of the Chinese characters for "longevity" or "harmony" as well as the name of the bakery and the filling in the moon cake. Imprints of the moon, the Chang'e woman on the moon, flowers, vines, or a rabbit (symbol of the moon) may surround the characters for additional decoration. Mooncakes are considered a delicacy; production is labor-intensive and few people make them at home. Most mooncakes are bought at Asian markets and bakeries. The price of mooncakes usually ranges from $10 to $50 (in US dollars) for a box of four although cheaper and more expensive mooncakes can also be found.

So most of the big hotels here carry Mooncakes and each of them offers a different variety of them. I went to the legendary Raffles Hotel to see their mooncakes and settled on a more modern "Champagne & Truffle Ganache Mooncake". I quite enjoyed it but Michelle was not a big fan. Anyways, it's cool to see the entire city getting into this Festival but I don't know how many of these things we will actually get, at least we tried them though.

Here's a look at 12 Moonkcakes you don't want to miss in 2009!