A Feast of Mooncakes

Mid-Autumn or the Moon cake festival was recently celebrated and I am sure most of you out there have had a great time with your friends and family.
I am not sure about the rest of you; but somehow, I felt that this festival seems to be slowly dying in its scale of celebration.
We don't really see a lot of children playing with lanterns or family gathering to observe the moonlight (literally speaking).
In fact, some kids don't even know the meaning of this festival and just go along with the trend of owning a lantern.
The tradition of worshipping Chang Er' (goddess of the moon) seems to have diminished along this line; especially since US reportedly sent the first man to the moon and he declared that there is no one there.
Whichever is which; personally I felt some traditions are good to be kept alive as this symbolizes a cultured nation and also it is interesting to know about those stories.

I am sure most of us have heard of the story of Chang Er, the revolution of the Ming dynasty through the mooncakes, etc which all relates to the origin of this festival.
I was about to elaborate further but then again, this is a food blog and people are here to look at food; not to listen to my history lectures:p

Much has been said about this festival and I have a confession to make:
I dislike mooncakes
Yeah, no joke, I am one kid who doesn't touch mooncakes.
I dislike mooncakes the same way I dislike durians. I just dislike it, the taste, the smell...whatever, and I can't stand those snowskin ones. Sorry to those who love it (which is almost everyone; including my own family:p)

But since the past 2 years I have started working, I have been away from home and initially mooncake festival meant nothing much to me (see why I mentioned we need to preserve this occasion?)
Last year, I stumbled upon a new innovation of the konnyaku jelly mooncakes which I tried and loved it very much:)Read about it here

I made a trip to Queensbay Mall (where I found it last year but alas, I couldn't).
Desperate to get them for my parents, I searched high and low and came across an advertisement to order jelly mooncakes (it's homemade jelly mooncakes, and they have free delivery too)

I called them up and ordered and since I was heading home, I decided to collect my mooncakes myself

Nicely wrapped!~


For the price of RM28 per box, I get to choose the flavours of my mooncakes!

I love the colors

Yahooooo....I am so happy because I can bring them back for my family to try...

The Kiwi jelly moon cake

Dissected

It was with some sweet paste filling; think it was pandan+lotus paste and the sweet hint of kiwi was really enticing:)

**It tasted different from the konnyaku jelly mooncakes I bought last year; and I happened to find that they were at 1U after I bought these (RM5 per piece only somemore....bummer)
But anyway, this was a refreshing discovery as well!~

The Mango jelly mooncake

Again, dissected

It had a sweet jam paste filling with strong aroma of mango

This is the dragonfruit jelly moon cake

With lotus paste filling

Not too sweet and nice....(but I didn't like the macadamia nuts inside:p I know most of you do:)


And pineapple flavor


With unique pineapple jam as filling!~

This was slightly sweeter than the rest



There were other flavors as well: Water chestnut, lavender, rose, red bean, coffee, etc.
The filling are minimal; but that's coz it has a jelly mould and it's rather hard to sustain the jelly if you stuff in too much of a filling.
Anyway, some commented that RM7 for a moon cake made of jelly is not really worth it as the cost is low.

Oh ya, for purchases of 2 boxes of jelly moon cakes, they give away one box of doll biscuits for free

Seriously, these doll biscuits are really dry and not oily at all - healthy homemade recipe!:)
Disclaimer: it may not be appealing to all due to that factor though

Enough of jelly moon cakes, now to the traditional moon cakes at home which they've bought

There was a 40% discount offered by King's Confectionery on these moon cakes; traditional or snowskin ones depending on your choice.

The traditional moon cake is often brownish in color; looking a little shiny on the surface.
This one came with green lotus filling

Looks really green to me and the filling is oh, so much...sweeeet (could be diabetic!)

Haha, being critical since I didn't taste it (attempting jelly moon cakes doesn't mean I will succumb to all mooncakes, there!:p)


Of course, since there's traditional ones, there's always the everyone's favorite - Snowskin types (Ping Pei)

Filling was lotus paste (lin yong) and macadamia nuts


White snowskin

Looks like frosted snow

It's also with sweet lotus paste with nuts



To get some famous doll biscuits or moon cakes in Penang, I was told to get some of the doll biscuits from this famous shop along Campbell Street; Tho Yuen

It is one of the oldest shop and is highly popular among the Penangites for their traditional moon cakes and also doll biscuits

It operates as a dim sum restaurant as well in the morning but I've heard they sell one of the best moon cakes on the entire island.
In fact, they're so good that people have to order ahead before they can get their moon cakes if they want them in large quantities.
I tried my luck one evening; since Mummy asked for their doll biscuits and I managed to get this box


I wasn't sure whether I was allowed to take pics inside the shop (you can never be sure with these traditional and elderly folks, they are kinda sensitive sometimes).
I got my Mummy the red bean paste filling (a box costs RM12.90 for 10 pieces)

Sorry I forgot about the plain ol' doll biscuits Mummy adored (without filling) and also those famous moon cakes with yolks and nuts in them.

All the same, this was quite a feast this year and I am happy to be able to celebrate with my family!~

How did yours go?:)