Mooncakes

My last 52 weeks post was about the lanterns and festivities around Mid-Autumn Festival.  One of the traditional foods eaten during this time are mooncakes.  I have asked around and tried to research as to what, if any, is the significance of the mooncake.  Unfortunately, I have no specific answer for you.  I guess I would liken it to fruit cake at Christmas and ham on Easter...is just something you eat because you always have.

So, what you ask, does a mooncake look like...

The traditional ones are typically round or square and are about 2 inches thick.  They have a thin, baked exterior with various fillings inside.  Most of them will have a salted duck egg inside but I actually wanted to taste mine and nothing about salted duck egg in a cake sounded good to me so mine was a fruit and nut variety.

They also have less-traditional varieties.  I picked up some that are called 'snowskin' covered.

These little guys are meant to look like rabbits.  I thought it was because this is the year of the rabbit but instead it is because the rabbit is the symbol for the moon...who knew?

So, I actually tasted all of these. 

The traditional mooncake smelled a bit interesting...sort of like spice cake but with some spices I did not recognize.  I figured it would be like fruit cake sense it was so dense and heavy.  Biting into it I realized it really must be a taste that is acquired...I did not really care for it.  It was an odd combination of sweet with salty and grains and paste and just general oddness.  Needless to say, I took two bites (I always feel like you should take two just to confirm) and then discarded the rest.

The little rabbits were oh so sweet...insanely sweet...over the top put you in a sugar coma kind of sweet.  Each was a different flavor.  The pink was raspberry, the green was green tea, and the yellow was vanilla.  The insides of these were filled with lotus paste which to me seems like a whole lot of sugar mixed with lotus somesuch.  If I had to choose between the two I'd take the snowskin variety but I am not a fan of things that sugary and sweet so one bite would have been fine.

In case you were curious what the insides looked liked...

I've seen these around since I started traveling to Singapore in 2008 and never tried them.  I'm glad I tasted them all but probably won't go out of my way to eat them again.

The best part of the whole mooncake taste test...the box the snowskin variety came in...