I chose topics for impromptu speeches connected with festivals, mid-Autumn festivals, Chinese festivals, lanterns and mooncakes for a Zoom online meeting of the Braddell Height Advanced Toastmasters club, based in Singapore.
I asked: What was your greatest success or failure with with festival foods, such as mooncakes. The winning table topic was about mooncakes.
In Praise of Mooncakes
To sum it up, winner, Jim started by praising the Chinese for inventing compact and highly calorific mooncakes. "Not like any other cake."
Extracting Cooked Mooncakes From Moulds
The body of his speech was devoted to describing his failure to extract his home-made, cooked mooncake from the straight-sided cupcake shape bowl in a wooden mould.
"Neither knives nor spikes would remove the cupcake, just created crumbs."
"Finally, I tried the traditional system of banging the mould on a table. My cupcake fell on the floor!"
Mooncake For Travelling?
He ended by suggesting that such a condensed cake would be ideal for a quick pick-me-up for travellers. Small. Simple shape.
Hm. A bit heavy to carry.
The UK standby for hiking and hill-walking is Kendal mint cake, which comes as a flat plain white bar. But many people prefer the chocolate covered version. The white sugar centre is not thin like After Eights, more like the round, hard, solid, circular mint chocolates.
My husband took a bar up Kilimanjaro. If you are in the East, or near a Chinatown at the right time of year, look for mooncakes.
If you are in the west, in the UK, look for Kendal Mint cake. See next post
Useful Websites
Mooncakes
Dozens of suppliers during the season. Set your price and filling in the search engine. Look for local Chinese or other oriental restaurants such as Korean and Japanese.
https://tuktukmart.co.uk/products/double-happiness-white-lotus-paste-double-yolks-mooncake-
https://www.foodforfoodies.co.uk/products/zheng-feng-mooncake-red-bean-paste-
2 mooncakes, London, UK:
https://www.yepss.co.uk/products/fa-famx210102
Mooncake moulds
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cookie-Stamps-Autumn-Festival-Cutter
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cookie-Stamps-Thickness-Adjustable-Decoration
Set to amazon.com if not in the UK. In theory your computer shows Amazon the address you have set and adapts.
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Paper-Lantern
About the Author
Angela Lansbury is Vice President Public Relations of Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club.
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