The Chinese Dessert Topic

[BettyK]

the eggy dough stuff coated with treacle (sutt kay mah)

Is it cut into big cubes? There's one we called 'macaroni cake'. Don't know the chinese name. It looks like lots of small broken pieces of dough coated with caramel and sesame seeds. Wish I could have the recipe for this.

Yes - think they're the same - strips of curly-wurly deep fried eggy dough placed on a deep tray, coated with treacle / caramel and cut into big squares, right? No recipe though - will browse at the chinese cookery books section the next time I go to the bookstore and see if any of the HK / Taiwanese books have a recipe. (It'll have to be a bi-lingual book though.)

Right. Would be great if you could find the recipe. Thanks for looking.

I also like sesame balls with red bean paste. Then there's also this flat cake with red bean paste inside a very thin puff pastry. Haw flakes and preserved plums are good too.

Are the sesame balls the deep-fried ones coated with sesame seeds? Think they're called 'jeen dui'.

That's also correct.

The flat puff pastry like cake with red bean filling - think it's called 'wor paeng'. They call it Chinese pancake here in Malaysia and it's usually one of the desserts at a Chinese banquet (together with a sweet soup). It also comes with a lotus paste filling.

Actually it's not that flat - more like 3/4" thick. I just found out it's simply called Red Bean Cake.

[Shiewie]

And preserved orange peel in those little shiny bags from Taiwan.  Do the Chinese diaspora count?  If they do, then kueh lapis, pineapple tarts, ABC, chendol, and love letters too.

no peel for me. ginger candy is good though.

what are kueh lapis, ABC, chendol, and love letters?

I like the preserved orange peel too - shiny black foil packages - they help keep me awake when I'm really bored and sleepy.

Ginger candy - the preserved ginger that's coloured red?

Kueh / kuih lapis - a Nyonya / Straits Chinese / Malay (or does it exist in Southern Chinese cuisine, I get confused between what's Nyona and what's Chinese at times) cake of rice flour, green bean flour and coconut milk. It's called Kaou Chung Gou in Cantonese meaningNine Layer Cake. I used to like eating it really slowly layer by layer as a kid.

ABC - an acronym for "Air Batu Campur" which translates to Mixed Ice or "Chap Shuet" in Cantonese. Also known as Ice Kacang. It's a Malaysian/ Singaporean shaved ice dessert with boiled sweetened red beans, grass jelly ("leong fun"), creamed corn, chendol (green wormy looking jelly made from green bean flour), bits of agar-agar and some peanuts (don't like them in this though) and covered with shaved ice topped with syrup (usually rose or sometimes palm sugar syrup), evaporated milk and topped with a scoop of ice-cream. It's similar to the Hawaiian shaved ice or one those Vietnamese ice desserts.

Chendol / cendol - short green wormy looking jelly made from green bean flour (the green colouring is from crushed pandan leaves) served with crushed ice, palm sugar syrup (gula melaka) and coconut milk. Some add boiled sweetened red/kidney beans to it. There's even one in Melaka with dollops of gooey caramelised durian paste. Again, am confused by its origins - think its Straits Chinese but it's also commonly sold by Indians (typically next to a rojak stall) and Malays too.

Love letters - these are basically egg rolls but localised in Malaysia and Singapore to include coconut milk in the batter. Also known as 'kuih kapit' meaning pressed cake as the moulds are 2 flat metal rounds each attached to a long metal handle. It's thinner than egg rolls (the ideal kuih kapit should be wafer thin, crisp and as light as possible) and the moulds traditionally have pretty flowery designs on them. They're baked over a charcoal fire, immediately removed from the mould once cooked and quickly folded into quarters (some are rolled) and packed into air-tight tins. It's a must-have for Chinese New Year over in Malaysia and Singapore.

Edited November 5, 2003 by Shiewie (log)

[Shiewie]

my favorite sweet soup always have been:

tapioca with cantaloupe and honeydew

peanut

sesame

the last 2 usually are just made from the powder, though.

i'd be interested in trying them made fresh.

Here are links to recipes for sweet peanut paste/soup and sweet seasme paste/soup. Hmmm - the recipes have milk in them though - bit strange, perhaps it was added for a richer tasting soup.

[Shiewie]

Are these like the candied apples that always shown in documentaries on Beijing?

Like the fruit in this link? I believe they are 'haw fruit' and if I remember correctly, they were sour.

http://members.aol.com/lumabner/china/grap...2000/hawboy.jpg

Ahhh - that's what fresh haw looks like. Have always wondered about that. Thought the fruit things on the sticks were little apples like crab apples.

[aprilmei]

Are these like the candied apples that always shown in documentaries on Beijing?

Like the fruit in this link? I believe they are 'haw fruit' and if I remember correctly, they were sour.

http://members.aol.com/lumabner/china/grap...2000/hawboy.jpg

Yes, that's it!! You could buy these in big bags in Shanghai. But like I said, they don't really taste all that good; they just look pretty. Like Shiewei, I also thought they were crabapples.

Shiewei, one of my friends goes to Malaysia every Chinese New Year and always brings me back love letters. I love them. They make a big mess when you try to eat them though, because they're so crumbly and delicate - don't eat them over your computer keyboard!! It gets the keys stuck and the IT guys have to come and clean it out, which doesn't make them happy.

[Shiewie]

Shiewei, one of my friends goes to Malaysia every Chinese New Year and always brings me back love letters. I love them. They make a big mess when you try to eat them though, because they're so crumbly and delicate - don't eat them over your computer keyboard!! It gets the keys stuck and the IT guys have to come and clean it out, which doesn't make them happy.

Leftover (if you have any left) love letters that have gone soft are quite good too - they're really chewy and you can unfold them slowly back into little rounds.

[trillium]

Ginger candy - the preserved ginger that's coloured red?

No, it's more like a ginger gummy bear, but shaped and wrapped like White Rabbit candy (with the wax paper layer). It's hot from all the ginger.

Kueh / kuih lapis - a Nyonya / Straits Chinese / Malay (or does it exist in Southern Chinese cuisine, I get confused between what's Nyona and what's Chinese at times) cake of rice flour, green bean flour and coconut milk. It's called Kaou Chung Gou in Cantonese meaningNine Layer Cake. I used to like eating it really slowly layer by layer as a kid.

I don't think it exists in Southern Chinese cuisine, so I guess it doesn't really count. The one I think of as default kueh lapis is shown here. It's an eggy batter with spices (Dutch influence I guess) that gets browned under a broiler for every one of those layers you see. I guess it's more proper name is kueh lapis batavia and the one you're showing is kueh lapis beras? Anyway, the kueh lapis batavia is a Lunar New Year staple in the partner's ethnic Chinese Singaporean family.

ABC - an acronym for "Air Batu Campur" which translates to Mixed Ice or "Chap Shuet" in Cantonese. Also known as Ice Kacang. It's a Malaysian/ Singaporean shaved ice dessert with boiled sweetened red beans, grass jelly ("leong fun"), creamed corn, chendol (green wormy looking jelly made from green bean flour), bits of agar-agar and some peanuts (don't like them in this though) and covered with shaved ice topped with syrup (usually rose or sometimes palm sugar syrup), evaporated milk and topped with a scoop of ice-cream. It's similar to the Hawaiian shaved ice or one those Vietnamese ice desserts.

I don't like it with peanuts either, and I've always had it without ice-cream. Is this a new thing?

URL=http://www.kuali.com/recipes/viewrecipe.asp?r=832]Chendol / cendol - short green wormy looking jelly made from green bean flour (the green colouring is from crushed pandan leaves) served with crushed ice, palm sugar syrup (gula melaka) and coconut milk. Some add boiled sweetened red/kidney beans to it. There's even one in Melaka with dollops of gooey caramelised durian paste. Again, am confused by its origins - think its Straits Chinese but it's also commonly sold by Indians (typically next to a rojak stall) and Malays too.

I have no idea who started it, but you can even buy it here in Portland, OR at Vietnamese grocery stores. It's a family size kit that contains the mung bean noodle in one sack and the coconut milk and palm sugar syrup in two other sacks, tied up with rubberbands...just add shaved ice. They call it something different that I can't remember.

You can buy love letters in tins at SE Asian grocery stores in the US around the Lunar New Year but they taste like crap. Sad.

regards,

trillium

[Hest88]

I love HK street snacks, but then going to HK is all about the food, isn't it? It would be a crying shame if they got rid of them.

Oh dragon's beard candy! Many, many years ago, there used to be a guy in SF Chinatown who used to make it on the street, which is where my mom introduced us to it. After he disappeared, we were delighted to find a guy making it years later in Chinatown in Montreal. We bought some to take home, but it's one of those foods that's never good unless it's fresh. I wonder if there's any place else in North American that still has dragon's beard makers?

Funny about haw flakes and haw fruit. As with many Chinese foods, I had the Chinese item and the English item separately compartmentalized in my head until well into adulthood. I remember the light that dawned the first time I saw a package of haw flakes use "hawthorne fruit" in the ingredient list. Oh duh! I had only thought of hawthorne in terms of old books set in Western Europe and never connected hawthorne with haw before.

[SteveW]

I also enjoy the dragon beard candy in Montreal. Enjoy this thread very much. If possible, please post more pictures of the Chinese desserts you enjoy.

----------

Steve

[Shiewie]

The one I think of as default kueh lapis is shown here.  It's an eggy batter with spices (Dutch influence I guess) that gets browned under a broiler for every one of those layers you see.  I guess it's more proper name is kueh lapis batavia and the one you're showing is kueh lapis beras?  Anyway, the kueh lapis batavia is a Lunar New Year staple in the partner's ethnic Chinese Singaporean family.

Ahhh that layer cake - I think of that as Indonesian Layer Cake since it was something that relatives from Medan, Indonesia bring as gifts when they visited my gran. I loved it when I was little and usually ate way too much of it at one go and felt really sick after (for those who are not familiar with it, it's a really, really rich cake made with something like 20 eggs).

There's a cake shop in KL that sells nothing but Indonesian layer cakes in all sorts of flavours. They're not bad but the spices in their cakes are not as intense as the ones from Indonesia.

ABC - an acronym for "Air Batu Campur" which translates to Mixed Ice or "Chap Shuet" in Cantonese. Also known as Ice Kacang. It's a Malaysian/ Singaporean shaved ice dessert with boiled sweetened red beans, grass jelly ("leong fun"), creamed corn, chendol (green wormy looking jelly made from green bean flour), bits of agar-agar and some peanuts (don't like them in this though) and covered with shaved ice topped with syrup (usually rose or sometimes palm sugar syrup), evaporated milk and topped with a scoop of ice-cream. It's similar to the Hawaiian shaved ice or one those Vietnamese ice desserts.

I don't like it with peanuts either, and I've always had it without ice-cream. Is this a new thing?

Ice-cream is optional in some places. In the old coffee-shops where ice-cream is a specialty, for example Keck Seng in Penang or this long defunct one (so long that I can't remember the name at the moment) near the old Rex cinema in KL, ice-kacang comes with a scoop of ice-cream on top.

[trillium]

Ahhh that layer cake - I think of that as Indonesian Layer Cake since it was something that relatives from Medan, Indonesia bring as gifts when they visited my gran. I loved it when I was little and usually ate way too much of it at one go and felt really sick after (for those who are not familiar with it, it's a really, really rich cake made with something like 20 eggs).

Yeah, a couple of really thin slices are all I can manage in one sitting, and with plenty of tea or coffee...all that butter and eggs. For those who want to play along at home, here's a recipe I posted years ago on Usenet from the indomitable nonya Mrs. Leong, author of "The Best of Singaporean Cooking" (which funnily enough also goes by the moniker of "The Best of Malaysian Cooking", you can buy either in S'pore bookstores, but they're identical). I've never actually made this, but we make tons of stuff from her book and everything always comes out well. Maybe I should actually do it next lunar new year. I noticed that there is no flour quantity given, I'll double check that at home and come back and correct it.

This recipe is from "The Best of Singapore Cooking" the comments in parenthesis are mine.

You can really see the Dutch influence on Indonesian cooking here.

Kueh Lapis Batavia

Ingredients

455 g sweet butter (no salt) (1 lb)

1 t mixed spice (recipe follows)

17 egg yolks

5 egg whites (use the rest to make pandan chiffon cake?)

255 g (9 oz) white sugar

2 T brandy

To prepare the batter:

Beat the butter until creamy.

Sift the mixed spice and flour together.

Place the egg yolks and egg whites in two separate bowls.

Beat the egg yolks with 200 g (7 oz) sugar until thick (it should hold a

ribbon for 1 min)

Beat the egg whites with the remaining sugar until thick (I'm not sure here

just how thick she means I'm guessing until it holds soft peaks)

Fold in alternately, the egg yolk mixture and the egg white mixture to the

creamed butter, adding a little flour between each time. Lastly, add the

brandy.

To bake the cake:

Grease the bottom and sides of a tin with butter.

Cut a greaseproof paper to fit in the base of tin exactly (I think baking

parchment). Place paper in and grease with butter.

Heat grill (broiler?) until moderately hot. Place greased tin under grill for

1 minute. Remove and place in one ladleful of cake mixture. Spread mixture

evenly and bake for 5 minutes until or until light brown. Remove tin from

grill and, using a fine sharp skewer or satay stick, prick top of cake to

prevent air bubbles from forming.

Add another ladleful of cake mixture. Bake and repeat the process as for the

first layer, till the cake mixture is used up. Remove cake from tin at once.

Turn it over, top side up, on to a cooking rack to cool for 1/2 hr.

Mixed Spice

30 g (1 oz) cinnamon (I'm guessing true cinnamon, from Ceylon is what you

want, not cassia from Viet Nam).

20 cloves

1 star anise

20 pieces green cardamom

1. Wash cinnamon bark, cloves and star anise. Air in the sun till very dry.

2. Remove the rounded tips from the cloves.

3. Place all the dried ingredients in a heated frying pan to fry over a low

heat fro 20 minutes (be very careful not to burn them, a very, very low heat

and heavy pan will work).

4. Remove the covering from the cardamom to extract the seeds.

5. Pound the spices together until very fine. Pass them through a fine sieve

and store in a clean dry bottle.

regards,

trillium

[trillium]

You can see really nice photos of candied fruits on a stick Ellen took on her trip here. Um, if you're squemish about seeing creatures on a stick you might not want to look at the pictures.

regards,

trillium

[Shiewie]

trillium,

This is off-topic but was just wondering is it difficult to get Nyonya Kuih in the States?

[BettyK]

Yeah, a couple of really thin slices are all I can manage in one sitting, and with plenty of tea or coffee...all that butter and eggs.  For those who want to play along at home, here's a recipe I posted years ago on Usenet from the indomitable nonya Mrs. Leong, author of "The Best of Singaporean Cooking" (which funnily enough also goes by the moniker of "The Best of Malaysian Cooking", you can buy either in S'pore bookstores, but they're identical). 

Thanks for the recommendation, Trillium. I just ordered the book from amazon (used). I believe it's out of print in the US. I also saw this title quoted in several cookbooks so I figured it would be worth having.

[Ling]

Oh dragon's beard candy! Many, many years ago, there used to be a guy in SF Chinatown who used to make it on the street, which is where my mom introduced us to it. After he disappeared, we were delighted to find a guy making it years later in Chinatown in Montreal. We bought some to take home, but it's one of those foods that's never good unless it's fresh. I wonder if there's any place else in North American that still has dragon's beard makers?

Vancouver has fresh dragon beard candy during the summer night market season (June-late September). I've also seen little stalls selling it (also fresh) next to Asian supermarkets, but not very often.

Some of my favorite asian desserts are flaky, fresh hot egg tarts, wor paeng, and baked tapioca pudding with lotus seed paste inside.

[trillium]

trillium,

This is off-topic but was just wondering is it difficult to get Nyonya Kuih in the States?

Sorry for the late reply, I've been away. I don't know how difficult it is to get different kueh all over the States, but we used to buy a pretty decent kueh lapis from my favorite SE Asian grocery ever, Thai Grocery on Broadway in Chicago. They'd import it from Indonesia around lunar new year. They also had other steamed kuehs that were pretty similiar to S'porean/Malaysian ones, and seemed to be made at home by people and then sold in the store. I haven't seen much of anything here in Portland, but we used to be able to find stuff in SF easily enough, especially around new year.

regards,

trillium

Edited November 18, 2003 by trillium (log)

[trillium]

Yeah, a couple of really thin slices are all I can manage in one sitting, and with plenty of tea or coffee...all that butter and eggs.  For those who want to play along at home, here's a recipe I posted years ago on Usenet from the indomitable nonya Mrs. Leong, author of "The Best of Singaporean Cooking" (which funnily enough also goes by the moniker of "The Best of Malaysian Cooking", you can buy either in S'pore bookstores, but they're identical). 

Thanks for the recommendation, Trillium. I just ordered the book from amazon (used). I believe it's out of print in the US. I also saw this title quoted in several cookbooks so I figured it would be worth having.

We adore that book. I'm not sure it's ever been in print in the US, but Mrs. Leong kicked major nonya butt. She's gone on to the happy kitchen in the sky but her book has been in continual print in Singapore. Hopefully you got one of the newer editions, the layout is a little better than the older ones. I can't say enough good things about that book. We've cooked a ton of things out of it and always been happy with the results. It keeps the homesickenss at bay for the S'porean in the house. It's got so he prefers some of the homecooked versions we make over the hawker stuff they sell today. One word of caution, she's very old school, so she calls for way more oils and fats than I'm usually willing to use (we're talking pints of oil for mee siam). I generally cut the amount at least in half.

regards,

trillium

[BettyK]

Your points have been well noted. Thanks Trillium. Haven't received the book yet. Can't wait.

I have a feeling my mam's cooking is closer to Singaporean as she has lots of relatives there.

[Dejah]

QUOTE (Shiewie @ Nov 4 2003, 08:05 PM)

the eggy dough stuff coated with treacle (sutt kay mah)

BETTYK:Is it cut into big cubes? There's one we called 'macaroni cake'. Don't know the chinese name. It looks like lots of small broken pieces of dough coated with caramel and sesame seeds. Wish I could have the recipe for this.

BettyK: Do you still want a recipe for sutt kay mah?

I have one from Pei Mei's Chinese Cook Book Volume II

I have never used the recipe. Have always made it with my Mother at my elbow.

[BettyK]

QUOTE (Shiewie @ Nov 4 2003, 08:05 PM)

the eggy dough stuff coated with treacle (sutt kay mah)

BETTYK:Is it cut into big cubes? There's one we called 'macaroni cake'. Don't know the chinese name. It looks like lots of small broken pieces of dough coated with caramel and sesame seeds. Wish I could have the recipe for this.

BettyK: Do you still want a recipe for sutt kay mah?

I have one from Pei Mei's Chinese Cook Book Volume II

I have never used the recipe. Have always made it with my Mother at my elbow. 

Dejah, I'd love to have the recipe. Thanks

[Dejah]

BettyK and anyone interested: The recipe for KAY MAH:

INGREDIENTS:

3 EGGS

1 CUP WATER

2 1/2 CUPS FLOUR

2 TBSP. RAISINS

2 TSP. BAKING POWDER

10 CUPS OIL ( FOR DEEPFRYING)

6 OZ. MALTOSE

1 tbsp SESAME SEEDS

1 1/2 CUPS SUGAR

PROCEDURE:

1. Sift flour and baking powder together onto the pastry board. Spread to form a hollow in the centre. Add eggs. Blend the flour and eggs together with your fingers. Then knead the dough thoroughly until it is smooth.

2. Roll the dough with a rolling pin until it is about 1/6" thick.Cut it into 2" wide long strips. Dust the strips with flour so they don't stick together. Stack the strips, then cut into thin noodles (across the width). Separate these noodles and again dust with flour.

3. Heat the oil in a deep pan (wok). Shake off excess flour in a strainer, then lower the noodles carefully into the hot oil. Deep fry the strips 1/3 at a time until golden. The noodles should sizzle and float up quickly.( I keep them moving, turning with a Chinese lie lay untensil to keep the colour even). Lower the heat if they are turning brown too quickly. Remove, drain and place noodles in a large platter.

4. In a small sauce pan, add the sugar, maltose and water. Bring to a boil then simmer and stir over low heat until the mixture is like syrup and pours out as a thread. Pour it on the fried noodles and mix immediately, carefully, thoroughly.

5. At this point, IF you want raisins, you can put them onto the pastry board. Then, put the noodles from #4 on top, pat into a big square about 1 1/2" thick. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds. Cut into squares with a sharp knife.

These can be stored in a closed container for several days.

[BettyK]

Dejah, thank you so much for posting this recipe. I have to look for some maltose at the Asian foodstore. Can't wait to try this.

[Pan]

What's the advantage of maltose over other types of sugar?

[jo-mel]

What's the advantage of maltose over other types of sugar?

From what I've read, maltose is not as sweet as sugar, and because it is naturally dark it adds color.

[origamicrane]

morning its 6am and i'm suffering from jet lag as just got back from HK yesterday!

anyway been digging through the whole chinese forum and we do not have a thread for desserts!!! why not!!!!

so are there any chinese dessert meister out there? what your favourite chinese dessert? do you have any recipes? or anyone got a good chinese dessert cook book?

Anyway things i would like some help on.

mango pancake - what the recipe/technique for the pancake? as it is so thin and seems more like a rolled out raw dough then a pancake?

black sesame roll - you know the dark transparent sesame jelly rolls , how do you make those?

tapioca and mango and grapefruit pudding (wong gum je lo)

this one i imagine is just simply tapioca, coconut milk, mango puree and cubes, grapefruit or pomelo pieces am i correct?

all those nice drinks you get out there like reb bean ice , longan green tea,etc

come on everybody lets get sweet!!