Cross-cultural mooncakes

Bangkok Post

01-08-2025

The Mid-Autumn Festival is tied to the traditions of the autumn harvest, when cakes were made as offerings to the Moon.
Mooncakes have different symbolic meanings across various the Asian countries, where their flavours and forms differ, shaped by local ingredients, climate and culinary heritage. For the first time, three Singapore chefs have collaborated with Asia's Best Pastry Chef 2025, Dej Kewkacha of Kyo Roll En, to launch a limited-edition mooncake collection in Thailand.
The one-of-a-kind collab brings together the culinary expertise of the Singaporean-Chinese chefs with Michelin-starred restaurants to deliver Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Singaporean flavours.
Chef Jason Tan of Euphoria
Renowned for his "gastro-botanica" cuisine that highlights botanical elements in French sauces, chef Tan has chosen to make a quintessential Singaporean-flavoured mooncake.
Kaya Toast is inspired by Singapore's iconic snack and features a kaya custard filling with a touch of salted peanut butter.
"I am always open to interesting collaborations and I know Kyo Roll En and chef Dej has being doing mooncakes for years. This is my first time creating and making a mooncake. My mooncake flavour is inspired by my childhood breakfast. I used to like eating bread with kaya and butter, which is traditionally Singaporean. However, I used to add peanut butter, too, for the savouriness.
"I liked this combination so much that when I was at Corner House [the chef's previous restaurant], I used to have a dessert called 'My interpretation of childhood breakfast' on the menu. I created a dessert called 'Peanut Butter Kaya'. Naturally, for this mooncake collaboration, I thought of these flavour combinations. The filling is kaya and there is a thin peanut butter fritter centre. The pastry is made of brown sugar.
"I don't think people usually associate peanut butter and kaya because it's usually just kaya and butter. As a child, a sweet breakfast did not really appeal to me, I wanted something sweet and savoury.
"Dej created the prototype and got someone to deliver it to Singapore for me to taste and make sure it's how I wanted the mooncake to be. It went back and forth for a while before we achieved the exact flavour and consistency of the mooncake."
Chef LG Han of Labyrinth
The first Singapore restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star for modern cuisine, Labyrinth's chef LG, as he is affectionately known, is renowned for his innovative exploration of Singapore's culinary heritage. Mooncakes aren't left behind either, though with an interesting twist.
"Doing a Singaporean flavour-inspired mooncake was quite natural to me, the culinary philosophy of how I came up with the idea of the flavours is the same as how I create the menu at Labyrinth.
"Being 100% Singaporean, but being half Thai, I wanted to do something that I love and also has crossroads with Thailand. So I chose orh nee, the Teochew yam paste dessert. In Singapore, we cook the yam paste with sugar, coconut cream and ginkgo nuts. I really enjoy eating this at the end of a Chinese meal.
"I discovered through my discussions with Dej that there's a Thai version, which has a similar base -- the yam paste -- cooked over fire with water and sugar and ginkgo nuts, which is similar. The difference is that Thais also add water chestnut, salted egg yolk sauce and goji berries. I thought it might be the perfect flavour to introduce to the Thai market, considering the similarity or familiarity.
"Getting the balance right was a bit difficult since there is a lot going on in one mooncake. I gave Dej a traditional recipe and we had a back and forth of three to four prototypes before deciding on one. I was quite surprised the flavours didn't overpower each other. The key was the consistency of the yam paste.
"I am at an age where I don't like my desserts to be overly sweet and I prefer it to be more natural, which also fits into Dej's dessert philosophy. I wanted to keep that ethos of who Dej is as a chef and who I am as a chef."
Chef Zor Tan of Born
Known for his skilful blend of French and Chinese techniques for a unique East-meets-West fine dining experience, chef Tan's flavour is sweet potato and oolong tea.
A refined blend of Japanese satsuma imo, or sweet potato, and rich Chinese oolong tea, are flavours derived from the chef's signature dessert at the Michelin-starred Born.
"The dessert at Born has Japanese sweet potato, different textured sweet potato, an oolong Chantilly and sea salt ice cream. I wanted to make a mooncake of these flavours that connect to me and to Born," said chef Tan.
"As a child, I loved sweet potato, my mum always cooked it with rock sugar. Mooncakes always have three layers, the crust, the filling and the inner filling. My crust is potato and oolong, then oolong tea and the inner filling is baked sweet potato."
Chef Dej Kewkacha of Kyo Roll En
Asia's Best Pastry Chef 2025, chef Dej's mooncake this year will be a Yuzu Lava, which has the aromatic yuzu from Kochi in Japan, and when warmed, presents molten "lava".
"This year, the highlight for me is the mooncake crust, which while you're eating it will taste more like cake and less like a mooncake," said chef Dej.
The limited-edition mooncakes are packaged in a handbag-style gift box with a bamboo-shaped handle, wrapped in traditional Singaporean batik fabric, a national textile pattern symbolising joy and friendship. The box is refined with intricate laser-cut detailing that frames illustrated scenes inspired by the Mid-Autumn Festival. With each box comes premium yuzu Sencha tea from Kyoto, Japan, infused with yuzu peel, a perfect pairing for the mooncakes.
Traditional mooncakes
Chef Dej is also offering a traditional Cantonese mooncakes, apart from the limited-edition mooncakes.
"For these, we use millennia-old recipes of classic flavours that can be kept for a longer period [max 60 days] at room temperature," he said.
The flavours are Cookie Crust, which is Thailand's first ever crispy cookie-crusted mooncake filled with almond and cheese; Pistachio Lava, buttery pistachios with flavour notes reminiscent of the viral Dubai chocolate; Lava Custard, which is a traditional Cantonese style with oozing salted egg yolk; and the Thai favourite, Durian Lava, where Monthong durian is used for the filling.
Presented in two sizes, the eight-piece is a two-tier jewellery box with a clear acrylic lid and includes two pieces per flavour. The four-piece comes in a chic, handbag-style hard paper box, adorned with illustrations of a Full Moon and rabbits, longstanding symbols of abundance and prosperity in the Mid-Autumn tradition.
The mooncakes are open for orders with delivery beginning from Aug 25 to Oct 12.