Thursday, March 27, 2008

Mini Mooncake Mhonthong - Thailand


When I purchased these cute little mooncakes, I did in fact notice the picture of our beloved "King of Fruit", the durian, on the front of the package.

But knowing that just because there is a cake called an "apple cake" it does not mean that all you are going to taste is pure sweet apples - but rather that it would be a nice cakish cake with a slight apple flavor. As well, carrot cake tastes NOTHING like carrots whatsoever. So I saw the cute little mooncakes, the picture of the durian and bought it anyway.

I thought today would be a nice day for the mooncakes. Dd had been bugging me for some time to allow her to make some "Bento Boxes" for lunch today - and I finally let her. It took her over a half hour to make her cute little boxes for her and her brother - consisting of soda crackers w/butter (since we were out of cheese) and pepperoni, shredded carrot and apple slices "carved" into various objects like a butterfly, moon etc.













Bento boxes are Asian and mooncakes are Asian - so it kind of all goes together.

Neither one wanted to try the mooncakes initially. Dd took the first bite (she can be very brave!)..."DURIAN! Sweet but like durian - this is going in the garbage." That didn't sound too encouraging to me - but I thought how much like durian could a little cake taste. A lot!

I took a small bite and it was PURE DURIAN tasting. No cake taste with a mild durian flavor. It was kind of a cake exterior but it was dense and inside was a paste? of what tasted like a spoonful of durian. I admit I did not even swallow it. Mine too went into the garbage.


The wee lad said "This is terrible smelling (it wasn't really) - like durian ...just say I didn't want to try it".

"Mooncakes are a Chinese pastry traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Typical mooncakes are round or rectangular pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. ...Traditional mooncakes have an imprint on top consisting of the Chinese characters for longevity or harmony as well as the name of the bakery and filling in the moon cake. Imprints of a moon, a woman on the moon, flowers, vines, or a rabbit may surround the characters for additional decoration." (from Wikipedia)

3 comments:

Dianna said...

Well, at least they're pretty.

Heather said...

My kids LOVE making Bento boxes. They usually use their favorite foods to make them though. I have longed to get my hands on something with durian just because I have read so much about it and think it would be interesting--not because I actually want to eat it. :)

Edi said...

Heather that's kind of how we felt about durian...b/c we read all this stuff about how nasty and horrible it smelled and tasted - it made us want to try it (with great trepidation).

Now we know it doesn't smell so bad and taste so bad...we don't like it but you've already probably tasted worse things than durian.