Moon-what? Mooncakes!

I love cake - and the moon is nice too.  So how could I not love mooncakes? I'm not sure of the significance or history around mooncakes - you'll have to wikipedia-it yourself.  What I do know is that they come out this time of year for Autumn Festival. 

In the shopping centers there are lots of temporary stands set-up in the middle of the mall with various vendors selling mooncakes.  Last year I didn't try any.  The lines were too long, I had no idea what I was buying and I had heard they were expensive.

This year I got a mini-mooncake at work, someone brought in a bunch.  And, I got the one pictured above from someone else at work.  I have gotten a lot of little gifts while working here in Singapore.  Everyone seems to like to give them out at any occasion - I'm leaving work, I had a baby, or just because.

There are all different sorts.  The one above of course is chocoloate (chocolate almond butterscotch).  The mini one I had at work was....I'm not sure, but it was white with a nuttish center.  It was okay - not my favorite flavor.  And the center was cremier - like a ball of creamy white chocolate, rather than the one above.  However, I think these are the western flavors :).  In my box above came a listing of other varieties.  Here are some:
-Pure Lotus Single Yolk (yeah, I think they might mean actual egg yolk)
-Red Bean
-Green Tea
-Pandan Lotus (pandan is like a green bread from what I can figure)
-Pandan Pumpkin
-No Sugar Added White Lotus
-Grand Ruby

For my nutrition friends out there - the ingredients are lotus seeds, sugar, refined vegetable oil, maltose, wheat flour and melon kernel seeds (plus all the chocolate & butterscotch).  It is about 180 grams, think the diameter of a donut, but densely packed filling about an inch or so high (giant cupcake stump??).  It is meant to provide 8 pieces/servings.  Here's some nutrition info per serving (whole).
-calories 97kcal (776 kcal) - not sure if kcal is same as calories
-fat 4.5g (36g)
-carbs 12.3g (98.4g) - assume this is sugar
-protein 1.4g (11.2g)
-fiber 1.1g (8.8g)

I almost forgot - these are like $10 a piece!  Well, I finally went looking over the weekend and the ones of equivalent size that I saw started at $8 - and they weren't the fun chocolate flavors either.  The high end ones, go for like $88 for a box of 4 - or maybe more than that. 

While they don't taste too bad, I'll stick with my $1.20 donuts for my sugar fix :).