UPDATED on OCT. 4: one bolded section below
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you all! If you don’t know already, this Chinese celebration is liken to the Western Thanksgiving as its origins were tied to celebrating the end of the harvest season. One of the most important and symbolic customs during this time is the sharing of mooncakes between family and friends.
Traditional Moon Cake with Yolk filling. Photo courtesy of my friend Jo @whiterosesandcoffee
Mooncakes are small round cakes with a main body that consists primarily of lotus seed paste and usually accompanied by two to four preserved egg yolks. As you can see, the Chinese appreciated complex flavour pairings even before they became a popular gourmet trend it is today 🙂 After hearing an eloquent first-hand account of a Canadian friend’s reaction to his experience with Moon Cake tasting as told with a scrunched up face, I believe this particular combination of both sweet and savoury may be somewhat of an acquired taste. Luckily nowadays, increasingly more pastry shops are creating East-West fusion versions of this traditional treat that everyone can enjoy. One version of these cakes which was made popular a few years ago was the Ice Cream Moon Cake. It was a delicious frozen apparition filled with ice cream wrapped with a thin mochi skin. Needless to say it was very popular with the younger generation as they were both tasty and beautiful.
Macaron Moon Cakes from Vancouver Pastry Shop Soirette
After Ice Cream Moon Cakes, is there any way to bring these treats to a whole new level? Yes! Today, I bring you the Macaron Moon Cake! These are
Mooncakes filled with macaron-filling flavoured lotus seed paste and covered by a thin layer of mochi. Now, you know there is nothing macaron related that I won’t be willing to test out for you! I decided to pre-order these well in advance from Soirette as they have a limited annual production run of only two weeks leading up to the day of the Moon Festival. As of this writing, there are no more digital traces of this beautiful treat on their website as it has all been deleted.
I hope you enjoy these photos and if you’re interested, hopefully next year you will remember to pre-order a box too. The verdict and tasting notes are at the end.
Specially printed box and ribbon all ready for gift giving.
The flavors are (from left) Tiramisu Matcha, Milk Tea Mocha, Espresso White chocolate and Early Grey. A set of 4 Minis are $38.
Made an Afternoon Tea Day out of it. There’s a Chocolate Cake I made plus McDonald’s macarons from Asia. Invited my friends Jo of @whiterosesandcoffee and Nora of @nomnomyvr to be piggies with me.
A mint green Paragon tea set newly acquired from the Kerrisdale Antiques Show and a new Royal Crown Derby Tea Set from the Gold Aves collection from Atkinsons Vancouver on South Granville.
Look at these beautiful macaron fillings! No egg yolks here! All of them are sweet.
EARL GREY: Notes of Bergamot and seemed somewhat artificial due to how overpowering it was. It did not work well with the lotus paste. TIRAMISU MATCHA: No distinctive tiramisu or matcha flavour. Jo said it reminded her of green bean paste. MILK TEA MOCHA: My favourite! A delightful blend of cream and coffee which is true to taste and not too sweet. Would definitely like to have this one again. ESPRESSO WHITE CHOCOLATE: Another flavorful combo containing bits of white chocolate. Close up of cross section is in picture above this one.
Overall, I enjoyed two out of four of the cakes. The online reviews have been mixed and even one of my guests did not quite enjoy their flavours. Calling these Macaron Moon cakes are a great way to market these babies as it really gets your attention doesn’t it? At one point, I thought they only had macaron “flavoured fillings” but they actually do have a mini macaron inside! (There is one truffle one that does not though)
Well, the packaging is top notch so it makes a wonderful Mid-Autumn gift for those in your life who do celebrate this event. Also, it’s a lovely novelty during this time and why not try it at least once with a bunch of friends? After all, the cleverl packaging reminds us that, “The sharing of mooncakes signifies the completeness and unity of family and friends.” Happy Mid-Autumn to you!
XoXo,
Mimi
July 10th, 2016 May 4th, 2015 February 15th, 2018 February 7th, 2017 February 17th, 2018Have Afternoon Tea with Me
Afternoon Tea at Urban Tea Merchant Downtown Vancouver
Afternoon Tea at the Ritz Carlton Hong Kong
Afternoon Tea at Audrey Moment in Burnaby
Afternoon Tea at the New TWG Tea
Afternoon Tea at H Tasting Lounge in the Westin Bayshore Hotel Vancouver
Hana Huang says
Hi Mimi,
Thank you again for your awesome recipe. I got it right the first time. 🙂
Can you provide recipe for the fillings as well? I’ve tried a few and would love to try yours. You’re the best!
BTW, I’m thinking about getting some powder food coloring. Any brand suggestion?
Have a great day!
Regards,
Hana
Mimi says
Thank you for your message! I’m so glad to hear that you got it right and on the very first time? That is just amazing! I will have some more recipes for the filling out soon as I have been super busy with my new Macaron Art video for Christmas Bears. There’s actually a Peppermint Chocolate ganache in that post. Very yummy for xmas!
As for the powder food coloring, I use gel mainly and I prefer the ones from Americolour. I have heard some other brands are not stable in the heat.
XOXO,
Mimi
Jo says
I love this post and thanks for using my pic! I can’t believe those mooncakes were so expensive…thanks again for inviting us. We had such a wonderful time!
xo Jo
http://www.whiterosesandcoffee.com/
Mimi says
It was nice that I got to share it with you girls! Thanks for trying them with me otherwise, I would become a piggy. lol