The mooncake festival is always an exciting time. Not just because we get to feast on the decadent pastries, but more-so for the precious time spent with family reminiscing over – and creating – timeless memories. Though we’re limited to a gathering of five for now, just think of it as an excuse to make multiple trips throughout the day in celebration of the annual event.
After all, there’s nothing more comforting than timeworn flavours amid a time of uncertainty. Sure, brands are continuing to come up with innovating and exciting new variations on the traditional pastry, but the enduring quality of old-style, handcrafted mooncakes is something that’ll never, ever go out of fashion.
And if the flavours don’t excite you, how about mooncake boxes? Nothing sets the tone like a well-made mooncake box – which at the very least, provides some much-needed respite from other worrisome topics. Here’s our pick of Mooncake Festival 2020’s best flavours and decadent treats.
Regent Singapore
All the flavours of Regent Singapore are on display this year with mooncake flavours created by each of the hotel’s F&B concepts. Flavours include a pistachio, fig, and Amarena cherry combination from Italian restaurant Basilico; and boozy versions like a rum, spiced coconut, and yuzu combination from Manhattan Bar. Meanwhile, more traditional versions can be found from Tea Lounge and Summer palace – think green tea with melon seeds, and black sesame paste. For those planning their Mid Autumn with a little more revelry, Manhattan has created four cocktails to pair with the various snowskin mooncake flavours – we’re big fans of the heady, dark flavours of the double espresso and almond marzipan snowskin mooncake, paired with the Lecce cocktail, a coffee and amaretto-spiked spin on the negroni. Mooncake and cocktail pairings are also available for dine-in at Manhattan, or as a takeaway with bottled cocktails up till 28 September 2020.
Order online here.
Wan Hao Chinese Restaurant, Singapore Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel
Wan Hao have updated their bevy of oriental treats with a selection of new snowskin mooncakes, which include a female-focused rose tea-infused white lotus mooncake that hides an opulent champagne truffle bursting with bittersweet, floral notes; as well as a daring fusion-style aquamarine mooncake that features a caramel sea salt truffle encased in white chocolate surrounded by mandarin orange and jasmine paste. For those looking to wow the room, arrive with Wan Hao’s premium gift set, which pairs a quartet of luxuriant gold-dusted black truffle and Bayonne Ham mooncakes with a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Brut Champagne. The heady, earthy aroma of black truffle in tandem with the intensely savoury ham from the Southwest of France is balanced by the vibrant and tangy flavours of the bubbly, making for an extravagant and luxurious affair. Of course, some old favourites and timeworn classic mooncakes return to grace the yearly event.
Available from August 27 to October 1. Order here.
Cherry Garden, Mandarin Oriental, Singapore
Cherry Garden unleashes Oriental flavours this season with tea-infused mooncakes in both their baked and snowskin varieties. There’s your classically-styled Lugu Oolong tea baked mooncake complete with the textural crunch of melon seeds, as well as a newly introduced snowskin mooncake that balances out the dulcet flavours of red bean paste with mellow notes of the well-loved Japanese green tea. For a departure from other tea-related pastries, try out their citrusy mooncake that intersperses candied pineapple chunks – that have undergone an extensive eight-hour sweetening, then two-day drying process – and mango-and-passion-fruit-spiked mochi with silver lotus paste.
Available from August 24 to October 1. Order here.
Jiang Nan Chun, Four Seasons Hotel
For something a little lighter amid a spat of indulgence, Jiang Nan Chun uses silver lotus, which requires less oil and sugar to achieve that same velvety mouthfeel. That’s excellent when you’ll be eating far too much of this season’s debut, the Litchi with Raspberry and Rose snowskin mooncake. A raspberry-rose gelee morsel is hidden within vanilla-litchi pa stry cream for a delightful and refined take on the pastry. Your typical baked and snowskin editions return in force, including their take on the Mao Shan Wang durian snowskin mooncake if you aren’t tired of the stuff as we wind down for the season. There’s even the option of pairing the mooncakes with organic sparkling tea, courtesy of COPENHAGEN – unsurprisingly, a Danish label – developed by renowned sommelier Jacob Kocemba and business partner Bo Sten Henson.
Available for orders now, collection or delivery from September 1 to October 1. Order here.
Crowne Plaza
Crowne Plaza Changi Airport brings locavore flavours this Mid-Autumn Festival with mooncakes inspired by local desserts. These include snowskin mooncakes that draw from favourites like orh nee (yam paste), mango pomelo and pandan kaya. They’ve also got a mooncake inspired by the Nyonya mainstay Kueh Salat, that incorporates the classical blue pea flower in the pastry’s snowskin. An incredibly smooth and creamy kaya custard with heavy hints of pandan rounds out the alluring treat. The kicker is that you don’t even have to pick which of these four flavours you like the most: get them all as a set for your guests – and you – to embark on a nostalgia-tinged mooncake feast.
Available from now to October 1. Order here.
Madame Fan
JW Marriott Singapore South Beach’s Madame Fan takes refreshing lychee – commonly seen in snowskin mooncakes – and puts it in a baked mooncake this year, giving the rich confection a refreshing edge. If that still hasn’t got the snowskin camp converted, they’ve got two equally compelling snowskin flavours this year: bird’s nest with Japanese purple sweet potato; and mao shan wang durian.
To order, visit here (site opens 3 August) or call 6818-1908
Aroma Truffle
This seasonal special from Aroma Truffle combines two heady ingredients, Musang King durians and truffles, for a terribly moreish treat. The mao shan wang they use comes from Raub in Pahang, which is surprisingly enhanced by the judicious addition of black winter truffles from Italy. Comes in two colour variants: one tinted with blue pea flower and the other a pitch, charcoal black. Available in a box of four mooncakes, or as a bundle alongside their famous truffle potato chips.
To order, visit their website.
Goodwood Park Hotel
If you want to go all-out this year, Goodwood Park’s offering a 12-yolk, 16.5 cm marvel of a baked mooncake. For the snowskin lovers, they’ve got two new flavours this year. The first is a refreshing combination of orange mousse studded with slices of fresh grapes; and the second featuring Japanese sweet potato with a pumpkin-coconut centre. Of course, it’s not Goodwood Park without at least one durian creation – last year’s mao shan wang Black Thorn, and D24 mooncakes make a comeback in all their luxurious, bittersweet glory.
Order online here (orders start 25 August) or call 6730-1868.
Yan
Cantonese restaurant Yan returns this year with a perennial favourite, it’s flaky, “thousand-layer” yam mooncake. This comes in addition to a macadamia-studded baked variant; and one snowskin creation – heady mao shan wang durian pulp encased in thin snow skin. While the mooncakes are available in sets of two or four, customers can also mix-and-match flavours as a box of four.
Order online here or call 6384-5585.
Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore
Conceptualised by Shangri-la’s chef Damian Piedrahita, who specialises in plant-based cuisine, look
forward to mini-vegan mooncakes that cleverly swap out classic ingredients (like the traditional egg
yolk) with a core of sweetened Japanese pumpkin balanced with organic cinnamon from Sri Lanka.
Crunchy, caramelised pumpkin seeds give the pastry some much needed crunch, with the
mooncakes coming in a dark green box celebrating the beauty of the moonlit night. Else, there’s
always the decadent combination of Hennessy X.O. and chocolate to further bring out the notes of
cocoa in the liquer encased within a rich snowskin mooncake.
Order here.
Fengshui Inn, Resorts World Sentosa
With health and wellness at the top of everyone’s mind, Resorts World Sentosa’s executive pastry
chef Kenny Kong and Feng Shui Inn’s Li Kwok Kwong have come together to create snowskin
mooncakes that – surprise surprise – are healthier than the normally decadent affairs you’d expect.
That means eschewing artificial flavourings and colourings and relying on the natural pigments of
ingredients (that are also purported to boost one’s immunity and vitality). An artfully coloured baby
pink snowskin mooncake incorporates lingzhi spores, said to promote longevity by regulating blood
glucose and boosting the immune system, are paired with heart-healthy grapeseed oil and roasted
pine nuts. These earthy flavours are balanced out with longan honey and Taiwanese-imported
longan, lending dulcet, floral notes to their take on, dare we say it, healthy mooncakes.
order via email at FengShuiInn@rwsentosa.com, via phone6577 6599, or here.
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