The Mid-Autumn festival is this week, and for many of us it’s all about the mooncakes. Young Post editor Susan Ramsay, sub-editor Ginny Wong, reporters Lauren James and Ben Pang, and junior reporters manager Tiffany Choi tested mooncakes (some really rather reluctantly) – from traditional hotel specialities to snowy ones from famous bakeries.
Custard with egg yolk (Langham Hotel)
The egg yolk in the name has been mixed into the filling, so you don’t get the hard egg yolk you expect in traditional mooncakes.
Instead, the filling is soft and crumbly, and their small size means you’re done before you’ve had enough. The texture is good and the mooncake isn’t too sweet.
HK$298 for eight
White lotus seed pastewith egg yolk (Cova)
Unfortunately, there isn’t much lotus seed paste to offset the salty egg yolk in this mini-mooncake. The egg yolk is the same size as it would be in a regular mooncake, so there is less lotus seed paste wrapped for it.
HK$220 for eight
Mango crunch (Maxim)
This snowy mooncake has a dark brown skin, which is wrapped around a mango-flavoured filling.
The filling did taste like actual mangos, which was good, but the crunch we were expecting did not really happen – there wasn’t enough of whatever they were using in the filling to make it crunchy.
HK$45 for two
White lotus seed paste mooncake with yolk (Kee Wah Bakery)
This traditional mooncake has the egg yolk (which is neither too hard nor too dry) placed perfectly in the middle, making it very easy to share equally among your friends. Lotus seed paste is typically very sweet, and this mooncake is no different, but the salty yolk balances the sweetness.
HK$64.50 each
Deluxe Chocolate (Island Shangri-la) – the winner with the team
Western flavours are no longer limited to snowy mooncakes. When this traditionally-shaped mooncake is cut, molten chocolate comes flowing out, like a lava cake.
The outside of the mooncake has a strong chocolatey flavour, and the inside is melty and sweet.
HK$538 for eight
Purple sweetpotato snowy mooncake (Arome)
Purple sweet potato is now a very popular flavour in Hong Kong, and a mooncake has been made to reflect that popularity.
This mooncake differs from the other ones tested as it is shaped like a white rabbit. However, the layer of sweet potato was so thin that it didn’t make an impact.
HK$50 for two
Green tea and cheese (Arome)
This snowy mooncake was very hard to cut, as its skin was very sticky. The filling was equally sticky, and had the texture of a water & flour paste.
Texture aside, the mooncake was very heavily flavoured with green tea, and was slightly bitter.
HK$50 for two
Blueberry duo (Maxim)
The snowy skin of this mooncake is a light purple. The “blueberry” filling consists of a thin layer of something dark purple that doesn’t really taste like blueberries at all.
This one was not as good as the mango crunch. You can tell that the flavouring is not natural, and has an odd chemical tang that lingers in the mouth after you’ve finished eating.
HK$45 for two