Liquid goodness: Mooncakes get molten makeover

First, there were croissants filled with flavoured custards. Then came baked cheese tarts plump with cheese mousse.

 

Now, mooncakes are getting a molten makeover.

At least six bakeries and restaurants are rolling out baked and snowskin lava mooncakes filled with custard or cream.

 

Places selling molten mooncakes include The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore with its mini vanilla- perfumed salted egg yolk custard lava mooncakes.

 

Distributors are also bringing in mooncake brands such as Hong Kong Mei-Xin Mooncakes, with its lava custard and lava chocolate mooncakes, which are being sold at mooncake fairs here.

 

Warm them up and the fillings ooze out as you cut into them. Warming up baked mooncakes also produces a buttery aroma from the crust and softens it. Eat them chilled, however, and you can enjoy the filling as a thick custard.

 

Prices for mini molten mooncakes range from $33.80 for a box of four lava chocolate mooncakes from Hong Kong Mei-Xin Mooncakes to $72 for a box of eight mini custard lava with vanilla mooncakes from The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore. These are about the same price or slightly more expensive than regular snowskin versions.

 

These mooncakes have come a long way from traditional baked ones filled with lotus paste and salted egg yolks that are eaten to commemorate the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, which is Sept 15 this year.

 

Many legends are associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival and one famous one says the Chinese hid secret messages in the mooncakes to instigate a rebellion against the Mongols in the 14th century.

 

French restaurant Antoinette has introduced three snowskin mooncakes which can be heated up to produce a molten effect, such as its snowskin mooncakes with salted egg yolk cream and ganache encapsulated in chocolate truffles.

 

Chef-owner Pang Kok Keong, 41, says he took a week to tweak and stabilise the ganache filling so that it will yield a "nice and flowy" texture when warmed up, while the mooncake skin becomes "mochi- like". Sales for the new snowskin mooncakes have been encouraging, with about 600 boxes sold since Aug 1.

 

Orders for them have made up 60 per cent of Antoinette's mooncake sales so far.

 

For Peony Jade Restaurant in Bukit Chermin Road and Clarke Quay, the baked molten matcha and salted egg yolk mooncake is one of the more popular mooncakes among the five new flavours launched this year.

 

About 400 sets of them have been sold daily since sales started earlier this month.

 

According to Mr Robert Han, 56, group general manager of The Quayside Group, which runs the restaurant, it is more challenging to make these mooncakes as the filling needs to be frozen and quickly rolled into the dough before being baked.

 

One of the first lava mooncakes to appear in Singapore is Hong Kong Mei-Xin Mooncakes; Singapore distributor Frosts Food and Beverage brought in the lava custard mooncakes last year and they sold out within a week. This year, Frosts Food will be bringing in chocolate lava mooncakes as well.

 

About half of the 10,000 boxes of lava mooncakes brought in this year have been sold since May.

 

Warm mooncakes without a flowing centre are hot, too, this year.

 

A La Bakery, a Hong Kong bakery started by Singapore-born media veteran Robert Chua, is debuting its mooncakes in Singapore at the Takashimaya mooncake fair. It is introducing three varieties of mini egg custard mooncakes, including those blended with salted duck egg yolks.

 

Even though these mooncakes do not have a molten centre, customers are encouraged to warm them up to accentuate the buttery aroma of the crust and to enhance the texture of the egg custard paste.

 

Prices of these mooncakes start at $16.50 for a mini salted egg custard mooncake, which may appear expensive, but most of its ingredients such as flour, butter, milk and Perrier mineral water are imported from France.

 

Mr Mario Wong, 36, managing director of Singapore distributor Curator Selects which is bringing in A La Bakery mooncakes, says using French ingredients gives the mooncakes a silkier texture and a more delicate crust.

 

About 1,000 mooncakes are flown in from Hong Kong every fortnight.

 

Customers are embracing the new-style mooncakes.

 

Housewife Evylin Tan, 40, who bought a box of mini salted egg custard mooncakes from A La Bakery, says: "Warming the mooncakes up is such a good idea as it brings out the fragrance of the mooncakes."