HONG KONG
September 11th, 2009
Mooncakes are a traditional Chinese pastry made for the Mid-Autumn Festival and are meant to be eaten outside, under the moon. They come in all types of varieties and are generally a tad dense for the western palette being that they’re made with duck egg yolk. Haagen Dazs though has rolled out an ice-cream version which was a top-seller in China and Starbucks has its own coffee flavor. They are considered a delicacy and stamped with chinese characters for longevity. Over 250,000 mooncakes were sold during the festival last year – even one of pure gold.
On my press trip to Shangri-La Kowloon, we made a batch of our own with black truffles. Here are some pics.
Our guide, chef-of-little-words, showed us by demonstration
We got chef costumes too
The ingredients and tools – dough, bowls, shape maker bats (clearly I have no idea the real name for that) egg yolk baste and flour
It was really quite fun -especially the shape making part where we had to bang the paddle on the side of the counter. The character on top means longevity, er, I think.
Right before the oven
Our impressive collection
Sadly I never did get to taste the finished product but I was told they were quite strong. I’m pretty sure making them is the best part anyway. However, I may indeed try an ice-cream one later. I’ll let you know.
