In the olden days, there are only about 2 flavours of mooncakes- they were stacked on top of one another and wrapped using a piece of paper. Else, pay 30sen more and you get a cardboard box that can store 4 mooncakes- usually bought for gifts. Each mooncake those days were handmade fresh and contain little or no preservative or colouring. Today, mooncakes are mass produced and beautifully packaged- of course the price is even more eyebrow raising. But can help but not be tempted to taste them? The following are advertisement in The Star mooncake special published today. Thought to share this pictures with everyone, especially readers from overseas (click on the images to enlarge them):
Above: Baker’s Cottage mooncakes this year.
A few years ago, Baker’s Cottage started becoming popular for their mooncakes- not because of the taste but because the way they package their mooncakes- in steel boxes. This year, I saw a huge banner outside the bakery chain- introducing ‘precious black’ favor- and I was like, ‘whoa, this company really dares to take risk. Black is the colour of style but it is generally not use in conjuction of any celebration or festival. Normally people will buy back mooncakes for their parents or in-laws and I am not sure how the old folks will take it- seeing the charcoal black mooncake. It would be either a big hit or otherwise.
But their flavours are really tempting: blueberry blackcurrent cheese, mocha almond fudge, chestnut Japanase jingsa with seaweed. Really deviates from the traditional lotus paste and kam tui.
Above: Checkout the rich variety of mooncakes. Do you know that the mooncakes above can be ordered online via Pos Malaysia, the nation’s mail delivery service. Geez, even Pos Malaysia is into mooncakes- and whoever who is creative enough to tap into the national mail delivery service for assistance and delivery sure is resourceful and have good business sense.
Checkout the boxes that comes with these mooncakes. The cost price of a mooncake is actually very low. But because of the packaging, a box containing 4 will cost over RM40 at its cheapest.
Above: Last but not least, you have the Tai Thong folks- Tai Thong is actually a huge chain of Chinese restaurants where a lot of people host their weddings in. Year end, mooncake festival and beginning of the year (till Chinese New Year is over), Tai Thong enjoy very brisk business. Then the months of March till about August are more quiet because people normally don’t host weddings during that time- I guess they will be making mooncakes then. Tai Thong mooncakes are sold literally in many places as they have many agents- their mooncakes have a lot of varieties but is mass produced. This year, they have new flavors as what you can see above- honeydue and avocado mooncake?? Can’t wait to see what’s for next year.
