Uncle Jim, owner and founder of Jim's Malaysia, has garnered somewhat of a reputation for his mooncakes. Mooncakes are a dense, sweet delicacy traditionally eaten with friends and family at the Mid-Autumn festival that's celebrated across many Asian countries – and this year, the festival falls on October 1, 2020.
Jim's mooncakes are only available once a year. In 2016, he first brought his traditional teo chew mooncake recipe to the city, a dessert which incorporates flaky pastry as its base. The next year, he embarked on an unbaked, snowy mochi-based mooncake, as well as a butter cookie mooncake. In 2020, Uncle Jim is expanding his offerings.
The butter cookie mooncake has been rejigged to be a molten cheese-based crispy cheesecake, with your choice of filling inside. There's also a black charcoal musang durian mooncake, designed to break with the idea that mooncakes, thanks to their high sugar and fat content, are generally unhealthy. Loaded with detoxifying charcoal and the 'king of all fruits', durian, there's a fruity sweetness to balance out the earthy charcoal.
Finally, the biggest addition of them all: you can now make the snowy mochi mooncake at home with a new DIY kit. One pack of ingredients makes eight pieces of mooncake, with your choice of lotus and or bean paste, as well as rice flour, lard, icing sugar and a mooncake mould to get that distinctive round shape. You can get the starter kit for $33 (which includes the mooncake mould and ingredients) or you can just grab the ingredients for $25. If it sounds a little complicated, don't worry – a set of step-by-step instructions accompany your kit. To get yours, send a direct message to @jimsmalaysia on Instagram or Facebook, or call 0431 518 208.
