The Executive Chinese Chef, Jeff Lee and his talented team at Xin Hwa, Mandarin Oriental, Jakarta have prepared a wide variant homemade baked Mooncake selection to celebrate one of the biggest traditional Chinese celebrations which fall on 8 September 2014. It also called as a Moon Cake Day where making and sharing mooncakes is one of the hallmark traditions of this festival. All the moon cakes beautifully crafted with the Mandarin Oriental trademark fan logo and colorful packaging. Everyone can come to Xin Hwa to enjoy their four best-seller flavors; traditional Red Bean and White Lotus, contemporary Salted Egg Yolk with White Lotus and Macademia with Red Lotus.
There is a tradition of making mooncakes during the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, but nowadays, we can easily buy these yummy mooncakes at Mandarin Oriental Jakarta. On this occasion, Chef Jeff Lee also shares his knowledge and invited some participants to join the Mooncake-making demo session. Andy, my husband and Soya, joined the fun in making the traditional moon cakes with Chef Jeff Lee. It was easy and fun! Senior Chef Pastry, Chef Rian FS also demonstrated how to make the new flavor of Mooncake using the chocolate-based.
Mooncake is typically a pastry with a sweet filling; that’s why Mandarin Oriental comes up with an idea to pair up four of their best-seller traditional mooncakes with their best tea. Salted Egg Yolk with White Lotus is best-paired with Sencha Green Tea. Red Bean paste Mooncake is best-paired with Guan Yin Tea. White Lotus paste Mooncake is best-paired with Pu Erh Tea. Macademia with Red Lotus Mooncake is best-paired with Mandarin Jasmine Tea. However, we can do a mix-match between our favorite Mooncake with our favorite tea, depends on our taste. Pu-Erh Tea is the strongest one among the three other tea; it has a slightly sweet aftertaste which can complement the heaviness of the white lotus paste. Guan Yin Tea, which is classic and popular in many Chinese Restaurant, become my favorite tea; it’s very aromatic. The Mandarin Jasmine Tea also has a very relaxing aroma, and it has a very nice jasmine aftertaste where we cannot find in other places. Red Bean paste is too sweet for me, but I really enjoy the big Macademia Nuts inside the Red Lotus Mooncake with Macademia.
Chef Jeff Lee is proud to introduce a brand new Mooncake flavor, The Mini Egg Custard. In addition, Executive Chef, Thierry Le Queau, has created a special Chocolate-based Mooncake that is available in the Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop. The Chocolate Mooncakes are available in three flavors including Caramel (the red one), Passion Fruit (the Gold one), and Pu-Erh Tea (the green one in the middle), and priced at IDR 118.000++ per piece. Each flavor has a different texture; you can see it from below picture. And among three flavors, I love the Pu-Erh Tea flavor inside the Chocolate Mooncake, because it smells good and not too sweet, unlike two other flavors.
Let’s share the joy of the annual Moon Festival! Mooncakes are available for purchase from the Cake Shop from 25 July to 10 September 2014 with price ranging from IDR 418.000++ for the mini mooncakes (box of 6) to IDR 438.000++ for large mooncakes (box of 4) or individual traditional Mooncake for IDR 108.000++.
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