Traditionally included in this "full moon" favours are the red eggs, Ang Ku Kuehs/Ang Ees or other traditional cakes/kuehs, savoury glutinous rice dish and food that were only eaten on special occasions (roast meats and traditional buns). For the Cantonese, pickled ginger are also included as it has the same pronunciation as grandson. For more information on the rationale behind the full month traditions and significance of the food, click here to read this article by Singapore Motherhood.
Red Eggs
Traditionally, hard-boiled eggs dyed red for good luck and symbolizing fertility and the renewal of life are given out. When I saw that to include a red egg in a ready-made "full moon" package cost $1 per egg, I was shocked and that reinforced my decision to proceed with a DIY package.There are many instructions online on how to dye an egg shell red - it is common to dye eggs for Chinese celebrations and Easter celebrations. The following set of instructions is derived from my literature review and have yet to be tested.
- Prepare the hard boiled eggs by boiling the washed and scrubbed eggs in a vinegar and food colouring mixture. I love the scientific approach that Serious Eats have taken to discover how to prepare a perfect hard boiled egg in normal boiling water and would be using their recommended methodology. The study is available here.
- If the eggs after cooking are not yet dyed to the desired shade, seal the eggs in a ziplock bag that has a chilled version of the vinegar and food colouring mix. Leave the eggs in the refrigerator until it reaches your desired shade. The ziplock bag minimizes the dye to egg ratio needed. The chilled mix and refrigeration quenches the hard boiled eggs to stop the cooking process.
- Once the eggs are the desired shade of red, place them on racks or egg trays to dry.
- For a nice sheen on the egg, polish the with edible oil using a paper towel. Refrigerate the eggs until it is time to use. The eggs are safe to eat up to about one week from the date they are boiled.
Alternatively, readily prepared red eggs can be purchased from Carousell sellers at a price of $0.40 per egg.
For a modern twist, red chocolate easter eggs could be a viable substitute! I especially like the milk chocolate from Lindt and am seriously considering the 18 to 28g egg as an alternative if it is available in the market when my baby turns a month old.
Photo image is from Google Images.
I just thought of one more alternative that appealed to me. Faux egg desserts! I was looking for examples executed before and found the following:
Mango and coconut parfait coated in white chocolate (soft boiled egg), served with gula melaka (soya sauce) and cinnamon powder (pepper). Photo image of "Non Entree Dessert"'s "soft-boiled egg" from its local menu courtesy of Melissa Goh on sethlui.com.
Faux Egg Panna Cotta. Photo image and recipe courtesy of Tim Ong on weekender.com.sg.
My personal ideal faux egg is salted egg lava cake. The cake would be a white egg-shaped cake coated in red chocolate. This cake would be better able to withstand the heat unlike the above two which are better eaten chilled.
Ang Ku Kueh/ Ang Ees
My husband doesn't like Ang Ku Kueh. When he came back raving about a stall's Ang Ku Kueh both peanut and sweet green bean flavours and actually making a trip to purchase it, I knew that "this was my Ang Ku Kueh!". As most people eat the package on day 2 and some may not even refrigerate it, I prepared some for him to eat under the afore-mentioned conditions. He was not aware it was from the same stall when he gave his review that the Ang Ku Kueh is normal tasting and nothing special. That review cemented my decision to proceed with Ang Ee (a different shaped Ang Ku Kueh that is given out when the celebrated child's gender is a boy) from:
Photo images are from http://jixiangconfectionery.com.sg/
Of course, I had done my prior research online and found that this was one of the most popular stores in Singapore. For close family members and relatives, I was thinking of having the yam and salted bean flavours included in the "full month" package too. That decision will come after my husband have test-tasted those flavours.
Other traditional cakes/ kuehs/ pastries
I have been getting a lot of hype recently about the magical coconut tart and egg tart from this stall SL II Muffins. My husband and my sister purchase the coconut tarts and the egg tarts once a month this past year to satisfy their respective cravings. Considering they were going out of their way to purchase it, I really wanted to include it in my full month packaging. Unfortunately, while they do delivery, their central kitchen delivers these bulk purchase tarts to them only in the late morning and the earliest self-collection pick-up time is past 2pm. This makes it unsuitable for my tight schedule where I want to complete assembly of my "full month" package by 12pm of the day of delivery and have the deliveries reached their intended recipients by latest 4pm.Another food item I considered including in the "full month" package are chocolate and vanilla flavoured cream puffs and chocolate eclairs. They are almost always welcomed at every buffet. In my research, I discovered 3 relatively cheap suppliers where each piece of eclair cost less than 30 cents a piece and each puff cost less than 15 cents a piece!
Savoury Glutinous Rice Dish
I decided that the items below all fits the bill of savoury glutinous rice dish (portion-sized)! I will probably be going with my favourite tried and tested nyonya kuehs from Tiong Bahru Glacier Confectionery.
Above products and images are from Lek Lim Nyonya Cake Confectionery
Kee Zhang and other Zong Zi
Image from Google
Kueh Salat (left) and Lemper Udang/ Ayam (right)
Above products are from Tiong Bahru Glacier Confectionery and images are from Google.
Packaging!
Last but not least, the most important step of the DIY is the packaging. People are very concerned about impressions and branding. They maybe hesitant to eat the package if they feel it is from a dubious source. From what I observed, well-branded commercial packaging have three things in common: brand name printed on packaging, interior partitions and colourful exteriors.For me, I think it is important for the recipient to know what they are eating, the sources of food (for those concerned about halal) and eat by date so I will include that in my own self-designed packaging!
The first hurdle to cross is how to make these custom colourful boxes in quantities less than 3000. After literature review of the designs, I discovered sleeves! Sweetest Moments, one of the most famous brands, uses an outer sleeve in which it slots one to three drawers in it. Each drawer comes with its own 3 compartment/cavity tray. To print sleeves and then wrap it around the box would be a lot cheaper and create less waste than printing 3000 boxes! This would also allow me to custom design the packaging - especially important in including all the details I would like in it.
The second puzzle was how to purchase trays because again, the minimum order quantity was 3000! This is where I was inspired by Singapore Mochi - they simply use a 4 to 6 compartments plastic container from SKP and slot a sleeve over it! The 6 cavity costs $18 for a 100 pieces pack and $2.90 per 10 pieces pack. Unfortunately, at 3.8cm tall, it is too short for Ji Xiang's 6cm tall by 5cm diameter ang ees, A deep cavity box 2.25" deep from SKP would be fit my requirements but they unforunately come only with 4 cavaties.
Alternatively, Dillac Packaging provides pretty packaging (some with compartment trays) for relatively cheap prices to consumers buying over the shelf.
Above product and image are from Dillic Packaging
Above products and images are from SKP
Most likely, I will be proceeding with a packaging similar to what Ji Xiang had provided for me - Each pair of items will be bagged in a good quality clear plastic bag and then putting the individually packed bags into custom printed boxes.
I will be working a sample out and hopefully my end product will be a professional looking "Full Month Baby Package"!
