Bing Liang Bakery Mooncakes [Sponsored]

Earlier this year, I was very lucky to be able to sample a truckload of yummy CNY goodies from Bing Liang Bakery, courtesy of cnygoodies.sg (now known as bingliang.com.sg).

And now that the Mid-Autumn Festival is around the corner, I'm elated to find out that Bing Liang Bakery has their own line of delicious traditional baked-skin mooncakes too!

And each 4 piece-set of their mooncakes are packed in this PINK (and jade green) two-tiered drawer box that is oh-so-pretty! <3

With current pricing ranging from as low as $32 to $50 for a set of four, Bing Liang Bakery manages to bring to us good quality and delicious mooncakes that's well-packaged for gifting at an extremely competitive pricing. 

The current 6 flavours available are:

Durian (Mao Shan Wang) - $46 / 4pcs

Green Tea - $42 / 4 pcs

Pure Lotus (Plain/Single Yolk/Double Yolk) - $40 - 46 / 4pcs

White Lotus (Plain/Single Yolk/Double Yolk) - $42 - $50 / 4 pcs

(Low Sugar Option Available)

Red Bean - $32 / 4 pcs

Pandan (Plain/Single Yolk)- $40 - 42 / 4 pcs

Out of all the fancy flavours, I really have to give a special mention to the low sugar white lotus seed paste series (plain, single or double yolk) as a loyal team #eatclean member.
Well, I know a truly healthy mooncake is probably never going exist, and having a low sugar alternative is probably the best you can get. What's more, it's a healthier option that does not compromise in its taste factor.
The lotus seed paste is not overly, cloyingly sweet (because low sugar, DUH!). The texture of the paste is also very smooth and easy to eat, while the baked skin is neither too thick nor thin and gives a lovely oven-baked fragrance to cut into the sweetness of the lotus seed paste.
And as you can see in the cut-section above, it also comes packed with a generous amount of pumpkin seeds to give a nice crunchy bite to the soft paste.
YUMS!

And for those who NEED to taste-test your mooncakes before you can buy them, Bing Liang Bakery does provide free tasting session at their HQ located at 39A Jalan Pemimpin, daily from 2pm - 7pm!
Bing Liang Bakery also provides SAME DAY DELIVERY for their mooncake purchases and offers free delivery for purchases above SGD $88!
However, if you are not in a hurry to receive your mooncakes, simply opt for next day delivery and use code "YUMMY" at checkout to enjoy a 10% discount off your purchase!

For more information, visit Bing Liang Bakery website HERE

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: Thye Moh Chan Teochew Mooncake, Baker's Well Snowskin & Raffles Singapore Snowskin

As mentioned previously, this shall be part 2 of my 2014 mooncake review. If you haven't read my review on Crystal Jade and My Bread mooncakes, do check them out HERE.

Initially I had wanted to buy the mini snowskin from Raffles Hotel but since they do not have a stall at the Ngee Ann City roadshow, I decided to go for Baker's Well instead. 

Assorted Mini Snowskin - $59

Flavours include: Champagne Truffle, Salted Black Sesame, Green Tea and Yuzu.

Look at these pretty cuties!

Needless to say, my favourite of the lot shall be Champagne Truffle, followed closely by Green Tea (my forever favourite flavour for anything, other than chocolate).

One thing is really care about for snowskin mooncakes is their skin, even more so than their actual flavour. And these mini mooncakes has done it perfectly for me! Thin, even, soft and yet not mushy and gooey, you can just bite into it upon taking them out from the fridge, no thawing really required! And neither does they 'melt' into a sticky, gooey mess after sitting at room temperature for a while. Their flavours strong enough for a distinctive, pleasant taste yet not overpowering, and the sweetness just right to make this a tasty sweet treat.

Baker's Well is located at 35E East Coast Road.
For more information, visit their FB page HERE

Thye Moh Chan Teochew Mooncake - ~$26 for box of 4.

I got these for home, as requested by my parents this year. (Last year they requested Tai Chong Kok, haha!) And for variety's sake, I chose 2 sweet and 2 salted, even though my mum told me she prefers sweet. And I'm glad I did! I believe, so did my dad! :)
The skin was pretty thin and flaky, which is like somewhere in between a bey teh soh and the Tau Sar Pneah AKA Dragon Balls. Unlike the traditional Orh Nee Teochew mooncakes, which are fried, these green bean paste mooncakes are baked, hence not oily at all.
As for the filling, I'll prefer the salted ones. Although the sweet green bean paste is a lot smoother and finer, I just felt that it lack the oomph of their salted counterparts, with the latter having a much crumbly grainy texture.
And of course, compared to the usual baked skin and snow skin mooncakes, these teochew mooncakes won't make you feel sick of the sweetness even after eating a substantial amount.
What's more, they're so much more affordable!

Thye Moh Chan is located at Paragon B1-11/12 and Chinatown Point #01-45/46
For more information, visit their website HERE

And lastly, Raffles Singapore Mooncakes.

I didn't want to add this in the list as I only had 1 bite of the mini snow skin (and almost wanted to spit it out) and can't even be sure of its flavour.
But a google search and picture comparison told me what I've eaten was their Champagne Truffle & Ganache.
I do agree the Champagne Truffle centre was nice, it tasted like a champagne infused rich creamy white chocolate. But everything else, and especially the skin, were MEHHHH....
I don't get the hype about this mooncake, really.

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: Crystal Jade & My Bread Mini Snowskins & Konnyaku Mooncakes

Yes, the Mooncake Festival (AKA Lantern Festival) is literally around the corner. 

And this year, I do have a couple of bakeries to go through, hence doing a 2 part mooncake review for 2014! 

Just from Crystal Jade, I have 2 boxes to savour this year. 

Assorted Mini Snowskin Mooncake - $42

Flavours include: Red Bean Paste with Cashew Nut, Almond Paste with Almond Flake, Cranberry Paste with Red Wine, Red Date Paste with Dried Longan & Pine Nut.

And I love the Cranberry Paste with Red Wine one most. 

And nope, it's not entirely because it's pink. 

While the others are really just delectably sweet (I can't say for the Almonds because I dislike almond paste and hence I didn't even try any), this pink cutie has successfully combined the sweeten, tangy flavour of cranberry with the distinctive earthy, solid and slightly tannic-bitter fragrance of red wine. I have no idea why, but the snowskin of this pink cutie, albeit more on the thicker side, is also the softest of the lot, perhaps due to the fact that its filling is more moist and gooey as compared to the rest. 

This is definitely something worth trying from the mid-market snowskin range, for individuals, like me, who used to shun from snowskins due to the overpowering sweetness and thick skin of play dough consistency. 

Another point to note is that, these snowskin doesn't really harden up badly in the fridge. Our family (my mother) doesn't really ship snowskins mainly because they harden up considerably while stored in the cooler and need to be thawed before consumption. But for Crystal Jade's minis, it's just a grab, cut, eat in matters of 10 seconds. 

Well, you can shorten it to 5 or even 3 seconds if you don't need to halve them. 

Floral Effulgence (Floral Tea Konnyaku Mooncakes) - $22

There are 5 flavours available: Roselle & Hawthorn, Chrysanthemum Honey, Osmanthus & Plum, Rose & Red Date, Snow Lotus. 

And while I was at My Bread, they ran out of Rose & Red Date, so naturally I got the other 4 flavours in my assorted box. 

Clockwise from top left: Roselle & Hawthorn, Chrysanthemum Honey, Snow Lotus, Osmanthus & Plum. 

Frankly speaking, I was totally drooling (and lusting) for the Osmanthus & Plum, with the idea of the light and sweet taste of all those osmanthus cake/jelly I've tried before at different dim sum places. 

But this was kind of disappointing. The fragrant, refreshing sweetness of osmanthus was hardly tasted, if any at all, for it was totally overpowered by the salty-tangy taste of plum. The taste of those preserved plums bits scattered among the konnyaku was so strong and distinctive, that it might be better to just call this Preserved Plum instead. 

There's nothing unpleasant about the taste, but I was just sorely disappointed with the serious lacking of Osmanthus fragrance. 

And so, what emerged as the most delectable of the 4 turned out to be Roselle & Hawthorn, It has to be this, for the flavours of both Roselle & Hawthorn was exceptionally well combined to have both pretty strong flavours to complement each other pretty well. The tangy flavour of the roselle will first greet you before the distinctive sweetness of the hawthorn washes over. 

The other two flavours were pretty decent, going by the safe route of a 'sweeten jelly' taste. 

Even though these aren't truly mooncakes at all, but really just konnyaku made in mooncake moulds, I believe that this Floral Effulgence range will be pretty popular among the ladies (like me!) who wishes to escape from the high calories of the fattening mooncakes and yet, still felt that the yearly Mooncake Festival will be incomplete without biting into some mooncakes. 

This shall be your perfect cheat. :) 

For more information on availability and card promotions, visit their website HERE

Do stay tune for part 2 on Baker's Well Mini Snowskins, Thye Moh Chan Teochew mooncakes and Tai Chong Kok baked skins. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Review: Mooncakes!

Even though I'm not a fan of mooncake at all, I still do buy them every year. :p 

and this year, I decided to splurge a little to buy one box for myself on top of the box I'll buy my grandma every year. 

No brownie points for guessing that I've gotten myself chocolate mooncakes. 

 

I first came across Chocoelf on bongqiuqiu's instagram, whereby she posted on their sugar-free snowskin mooncakes. Obviously attracted by the name chocoelf, I did some research and also asked for opinions online and got some really head scratching reviews, claiming that they're 100% sugar and sugar substitute free, is not sweet at all, and yet taste very nice. 

Giving up on these reviews, I decided to grab a box and try them out for myself. My verdict? Read on.

 A box of their chocolate skin mooncake comes with 3 round mooncakes and 10 small rectangular ones, priced at $58. Even though labelled as sugar-free, and claimed as free of substitutes by some people online, I've confirmed with their sales person (twice) that Chocoelf uses a sugar alcohol, Maltitol, as their sugar substitute.

The 3 round mooncakes consist of Dark Lotus, Vanilla Lotus, and Cabernet Red Wine Lotus. The minis are supposedly filled with a blend of cranberry & macademia nuts white lotus.

Sounds really good, with an awesome variety, yeah? Sadly, no. Perhaps in terms of appearances and supposed ingredients, chocoelf chocolate skin mooncakes offer us an awesome variety. But focusing plainly on taste, none. I'm sorry to say that all 4 flavours of mooncake tastes almost exactly the same, crumbly lotus paste filled pralines. 

I'm not sure if it's because the lotus paste is sugar-free, but they are really very crumbly and significantly rougher in texture as compared to any other normal mooncakes in the market, which basically kinda 'cheapen' the taste. 

As opposed to reviews stating they're not sweet, I'm sorry to refute them as a load of crap. 

THEY ARE SWEET, just not horribly sweet like some mooncakes in the market that makes you cringe. The chocolates skin basically just taste like any other good quality chocolate, with the dark chocolate being short of the bitterness I was expecting (and would have enjoyed) and the white chocolate being sweeter than the rest. As for the sugar free lotus, they're just rougher in texture, more crumbly, and significantly blander and less sweet in taste compared to a normal lotus paste.

 Cabernet Red Wine Lotus

 Dark Lotus

Vanilla Lotus

As seen from the pictures, all different flavours comes with nuts (all macademia, i reckon) with only the minis and the cabernet red wine lotus having extra cranberries. Even so, there are a good amount of minis I've eaten with no taste/findings of cranberries at all, with meagre amount of chopped macademia nuts within. I can hardly taste the difference between them as well, with the Vanilla Lotus being slightly easier to differentiate due to the white chocolate taste. The Cabernet red wine lotus somehow tasted the best out of the 4 flavours, however with the taste being so remotely similar to the dark lotus that I couldn't put the taste into words at all. And nope, even though named as Cabernet Red Wine Lotus, I didn't pick up any hint of wine taste in the mooncake. It's really just normal chocolate taste combined with some very much less sweet lotus paste, same for all the 4 flavours. 

In addition, the mooncakes are also extremely small. Minis aside, the round mooncakes, which I've expected them to be a 'standard' mooncake size, are slightly smaller in diameter and less than half the thickness.

So, $58 for a box of pralines with 'cheap tasting' lotus paste filling? 

You'll be the judge. 

 Aside to Chocoelf I've bought for myself, I've also bought Peony Jade's Teochew Orh Nee Mooncake for grandma, after seeing their brilliant review on Channel 8 TV show. 

I guess the show really worked its wonder, for when I went to Taka Atrium, they're completely sold out. Undeterred, I made my way to Century Square Atrium and they were only left with plain ones, no yolk no pumpkin paste. :(

I didn't try these out for myself, because it's for my grandma and I'm not a fan of yam paste either. However, feedback from my grandma is that their skin is very thick, which she didn't like. Nevertheless, the yam paste is not too sweet and is relatively smooth. 

She gave me 1 brownie point for buying the plain ones and not the yolk ones (actually is because there's only plain ones left...) for her because according to her, yam paste and yolk makes a horrible combination. 

Grandma has already requested that I buy her Tai Chong Kok baked skin mooncakes for her next year. *rofl*

Helped my parents buy their baked skin from there (my mum asked me buy cheap bengawan solo ones, but I went ahead to buy TCK ones because it's really just a few dollars more with my 20% card discount promo) and my mum was raving about how fragrant they were. It's also a rare chance my dad actually did eat a bit of the yolk inside for TCK's one. He detests yolk because of the raw 'fishy' smell but TCK's yolks apparently were well-done to be able to get rid of that smell.

Now my question is, I know TCK has split up and branched into 2 different shops. So all those hardcore mooncake fans out there, which branch is the better one?
Do leave your opinions in the comment box for my mooncake shopping next year! :)

Till then, 

Mia

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