Since I was a child, I have grown up celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival. I never really knew the significance of the yearly event, but I remember our family celebrating this day with festive dishes, lanterns and mooncakes. Now as an adult and mother, I have learned about the many stories behind the Mid-Autumn Festival to make sure my children learn a bit more of their cultural heritage. There are so many stories – including the love story of the Goddess Chang E. You can read more about the Mid-Autumn stories here.
As time has passed, traditional mooncakes have evolved from the standard lotus seed paste with salted duck egg yolk in the middle to lava salted egg yolk custard mooncakes and snowy mooncakes. We’re excited to share with everyone a list of local bakeries offering mooncakes this year.
Saint Germain Bakery offer several kinds of mooncakes like the traditional kind that has a lotus seed paste and whole salted egg yolks as filling, another kind with date paste and nuts as usual this year. But what’s worth noting is that they are offering something that’s new this year (as a matter of fact, a first in Canada) and that these lava salted egg yolk custard mooncakes are baked fresh daily at all of their locations.
Traditional mooncakes are made weeks in advance, and they are usually made to last for up to a month, but these fresh mooncakes are baked daily and must be enjoyed within 3 days. And they are even better if you can pop them into the oven at 350F for a few minutes to reheat them before eating. Give it a try and you’ll immediately notice the difference between freshly baked mooncakes vs the traditionally made ones.
They are also running an early bird promo exclusively on their online shop, 15% off on all mooncake products until Sept 10th. www.saintgermainbakery.com
Each exclusive Soirette Gift Box, featuring 8 mooncakes is set in a beautiful square box.
Every component is made from scratch in small batches, with fresh ingredients and no preservatives.
This set comes with 8 unique mooncakes, including some wonderful favourites and some new ones inspired by childhood memories from Malaysia. The special large floral mooncake is filled with Double Pistachio truffles, and symbolizes prosperity, love, joy and longevity.
List of Mooncakes, clock wise from the top right:
For more information, please go to: https://www.soirette.com/
For the very first time, Buttermere Patisserie is offering charming mooncakes to celebrate this significant cultural tradition. “The traditional mooncake is a round, baked delicacy filled with lotus paste and a salted egg yolk meant to depict the moon,” explains Jamie Tung, owner and pastry chef of Buttermere Patisserie. “At Buttermere, we like to do things a little differently while still honouring cultural traditions, which is why we decided to offer a mixture of historical convention and present-day style in both flavour and look.”
Buttermere Patisserie’s mooncakes are made with steamed glutinous rice flour to make a mochi-like pastry shell and shaped to tell the mythical love story of Goddess Chang’e. Each mooncake symbolizes a piece of the ancient legend: the white coconut pandan Jade Hare (玉兔) is the mythical moon rabbit sent to accompany Goddess Chang’e; the green matcha red bean Marigold (萬壽菊) is a symbol of love and despair; the dark pink cream cheese cranberry Lotus (蓮花) is a depiction of purity and union; the black sesame hazelnut Hua-Chuan (花窗) is the shape of the antique Chinese window pane from which one admires the moon; the purple milky taro Auspicious Cloud (祥雲) is a popular mark in the evening sky; and the classic yellow salted egg custard Mid-Autumn mooncake is an ode to the heritage folklore.
Sold only as a package of 6 in a Buttermere branded hand-carry box, each mooncake weighs about 50 grams and comes individually packed. Buttermere’s mooncakes are priced at $60 each set and available for pre-order August 23rd through to September 18th online for pick up or delivery from September 12th to September 21st.
La Patisserie offer 3 categories of mooncakes: traditional moon cakes, custard, and ice mooncakes. For traditional mooncakes, they offer white lotus paste, red lotus paste, red bean paste, green bean paste, and mixed nuts with cured ham. The star of the traditional moon cakes are the salted egg yolks. They make 6, 4, 2, and 1 egg yolk moon cakes. Custard mooncake has been quite popular for the last 5 years and it has a lighter taste compared to traditional mooncakes. For best taste, slightly toast it in a small convention oven for 5 mins. For ice moon cakes, similar to an ice cream mochi, but made with difference fillings, such as red bean, black sesame paste, chocolate pearls and their top selling filling is durian.
For more information: https://www.instagram.com/la_patisserie_bakery/
Maxim’s Lava Custard Mooncake
A unique breakthrough in the market that combining lava filling with custard mooncake. With the finest ingredients: Fresh local butter, coconut cream, whipping cream and supreme salted egg yolks, Maxim’s Lava custard mooncake brings you a new level of gastronomy enjoyment.
Price: $44.70 / 6 pcs; $59.60 / 8 pcs
Maxim’s Durian Custard Mooncake
Price: $44.70 / 6 pcs; $59.60 / 8 pcs
Maxim’s Snowy Mooncake Series:
Snowy mooncakes are made with frozen glutinous rice. They use a variety of fillings (mung bean, chocolate & mocha, mango & pomelo, cheese & blueberry, durian, green tea & raspberry, red bean) for their different snowy mooncakes. They all add up to a delightfully special Mid-Autumn treat.
Price: $19.40 / 4 pcs; $29.10 / 6 pcs; $38.80 / 8 pcs
For more information, go to https://www.instagram.com/maxims.bakery/
This Chocolate Art ‘Moon Cakes’ Bouchées Series is an ‘East-Meets-West’ collection that is custom designed and hand-crafted for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival celebration. The series is inspired on the traditional Taiwanese ‘Pineapple Cake’ combining a cookie with a cooked fruit filling. Our version includes sweet ingredients commonly found in traditional Chinese Moon Cakes such as red bean, for example, but crafted using modern French based chocolate-making techniques. The ‘Chocolate Moon Cakes’ Series features the typical dough component, a cooked paste filling as well as a single origin cocoa bean to bar soft dark chocolate ganache. The ‘MoonCake’ are enrobed in dark chocolate and decorated with an embossed disc of almond paste hand-painted with cocoa butter colours. This Collection is packaged in our exclusive Limited Release Wild Sweets® FoodArt photo-graphic art custom print gift box sleeve showcasing an illustration of the moon cake pattern. The Wild Sweets® ‘Moon Cakes’ Series features the following assortment of filling paste flavours;
This product is available to pick up starting September 10 to 26, 2021 and/or while supplies last. We are offering a Special Discount Offer of 15% Off on Pre-Orders Only up to September 05, 2021 and/or while supply last. For more information: https://www.dcduby.com/
For Mooncakes, we have 6 flavours this year in the box:
For more information: Paragon Tea Room x Salty Sugar Patisserie
