The Chinese Dessert Topic

[hzrt8w]

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?

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Did you try some Bubur Cha Cha in Hong Kong?

My recipe:

Bubur Cha Cha

How about the black sesame porridge?

[origamicrane]

yeah my mum makes Bubur Cha Cha sometimes its quite nice.

The think that a lot of the older school sweet soups and dessert recipes

i can actually find but its the newer desserts that are difficult to find recipes for.

The black sesame porridge/paste is good haven't had that in years though

here's a recipe from one of my cookbooks

3 oz toasted black sesame seed

1 oz toasted white sesame seed

4 oz calrose rice, presoaked in water for an hour

1 litre of water

4 oz sugar or to taste

stick everything but the sugar into a blender and blitz to a fine paste

filter through a sieve.

Put the filtered paste in to a pot and bring to a gentle simmer

the paste will thicken up

add the sugar to taste

and dilute with water for the desired thickness.

actually if you want to make sesame ice cream just pound the toasted sesame in a mortar and simmer in 250ml of milk and then add to a standard ice cream base and churn its lovely.

[Pan]

Is Bubur considered a Chinese dessert? I consider it Malay(sian).

On the other hand, there are some similar things that I consider Chinese, like red bean soup and nut soup.

[origamicrane]

Is Bubur considered a Chinese dessert? I consider it Malay(sian).

On the other hand, there are some similar things that I consider Chinese, like red bean soup and nut soup.

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yeah i think it a Malaysian thing really

but there are certain desserts that are so popular with chinese people that it just get absorbed into the popular consciousness.

[Yuki]

Actually, there are sites with chinese(or should I say new Cantonese) dessert recipe, but they are all in Chinese.

Is the mango pancake more like a mango crepe then filled with mango chunks and whipped cream?

Black Sesame Roll Recipe (In Chinese)

[origamicrane]

damn!! wish my chinese reading and typing was stronger :)

well its still good post your chinese recipe website links too if there naything that looks cool i will pull a translation and post it here thanks for the sesame roll recipe i will give it a go :)

as to the mango pancake

yeah it a yellow thin crepe almost like a wonton wrapper filled with cubed mango chunks and whipped cream. I got a recipe for the crepe but it just doesn't seem the same as the ones you get in the dessert stores in sai kung or even the food hall of city super.

5 oz flour

1 egg

1 oz custard powder

1 oz milk powder

16 oz water

sift all the powder together, add the egg and water mix to form the crepe batter.

pour a thin layer in a frying pan and cook both sides.

its close to the right texture but seems to be missing a certain something

[hzrt8w]

Is Bubur considered a Chinese dessert? I consider it Malay(sian).

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It's just a dessert popular in Hong Kong.

I think the Malaysians borrowed the red bean soup technique hundreds of years ago, and added taro, sweet potato, coconut and tapioca. Now the dessert infiltrated back to the Chinese market.

[hzrt8w]

The black sesame porridge/paste is good haven't had that in years though

here's a recipe from one of my cookbooks

3 oz toasted  black sesame seed

1 oz toasted  white sesame seed

4 oz calrose rice, presoaked in water for an hour

1 litre of water

4 oz sugar or to taste

.....

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When it comes to black sesame porridge, I get lazy.

I just buy a ready-made package from an Asian market (in powder form). Mix it some water, heat it up, it's ready in minutes!

Same goes to peanut porridge too.

[jschyun]

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?

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You know, ever since I had this in Vancouver, I have wondered how that pancake was made. I looked at it very carefully, and it almost looks like it was poured very thinly, and then just let to set. There is absolutely no leavening I could ascertain. I would suspect that there are eggs in this recipe, and then just water and flour, but as to proportions and technique I could not guess.

--actually, I wonder if it's steamed because there were absolutely no markings of frying of any kind. Perfectly smooth.

Edited November 16, 2004 by jschyun (log)

[Tepee]

Last night, we went to a Taiwanese restaurant and made a plate of caramelized sweet potato chunks disappear faster than Dash Incredible. The chunks were very evenly coated with hot caramel, and we dip them into a bowl of water with ice cubes in it. The result...a very thin and brittle, yummy coating. I usually see recipes with apples prepared this way, but the sweet potatoes (pre-steamed, I suppose) were very good too. The proprietor says back in Taiwan, they use bananas too.

[Pan]

Back in the early 70s, there was a good Mandarin-style restaurant called Chun Cha Fu on Broadway near 92 St. on Manhattan's Upper West Side which made honey apples and bananas in more or less the same manner, with the addition of sesame seeds. My brother and I, as children, really enjoyed both the steamy dousing in ice water and the taste of those desserts.

[herbacidal]

What is Mandarin-style?

[Pan]

North-Chinese style. It's really too long ago for me to remember specific dishes much, but it was quite distinct from the Cantonese restaurants that predominated in New York in those days.

[Kiem Hwa]

My favorite Chinese dessert......

Many, but the one thats been on my mind the most...BUNS!

Baked custard bun, with "pineapple" topping

And from my favorite bun shop (Jade's Bakery in Gardena, CA), soft baked buns filled with mochi+taro, taro+shredded sweet pork, and cream/custard? bread: loaf of sweet bread with a spiral of custard/cream - baked, it is like a spiral of the "pineapple" topping...yummy!!!!

sigh......I havent found any equivalently good buns shops here in Hawaii......

[hzrt8w]

My favorite Chinese dessert......

Many, but the one thats been on my mind the most...BUNS!

Baked custard bun, with "pineapple" topping

And from my favorite bun shop (Jade's Bakery in Gardena, CA), soft baked buns filled with mochi+taro, taro+shredded sweet pork, and cream/custard? bread: loaf of sweet bread with a spiral of custard/cream - baked, it is like a spiral of the "pineapple" topping...yummy!!!!

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It is interesting that you considered these buns as desserts. Sweet, yes they sure are (well, some of them). However, in Hong Kong most of these buns are consumed as breakfast and as an afternoon snack. After we eat a full meal, either lunch or dinner, I don't think we would be too motivated to consume more carb.

Edited November 29, 2004 by hzrt8w (log)

[spaghetttti]

What about those milky almond flavored agar-agar cubes served with crushed ice and fruit cocktail? I tend to think that it's an American Chinese concoction, would that be correct?

Is the dessert that Dejah makes with agar-agar and egg white swirls typically Chinese?

Edited November 29, 2004 by spaghetttti (log)

[Transparent]

What about those milky almond flavored agar-agar  cubes served with crushed  ice and fruit cocktail?  I tend to think that it's an American Chinese concoction, would that be correct? 

Is the dessert that Dejah makes with agar-agar and egg white swirls typically Chinese?

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The agar agar dessert with the egg swirls is a traditional dessert. In fact, its called "dai choy goh," which is basically agar-agar goh which I don't really know how to translate.

I don't think I've seen those almond flavored cubes before. They sound interesting.

[hzrt8w]

What about those milky almond flavored agar-agar  cubes served with crushed  ice and fruit cocktail?  I tend to think that it's an American Chinese concoction, would that be correct? 

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No, it's not an American Chinese thing. We ate that in Hong Kong all the time. The closest translation is "Almond Jello", although it's not really jello. Actually the tranlation from Cantonese would be "Almond tofu". Yes, it is considered as a dessert.

Is the dessert that Dejah makes with agar-agar and egg white swirls typically Chinese?

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In Cantonese we call it Dai Choy Goh. Goh is like Kuih/Kueh. It is an any-time snack.

I think there tends to be a misunderstanding of the Chinese eating culture. In the western world (European, American/Canadian/Australian), dessert is an integral part of a meal. If you eat a meal (especially dinner) without dessert, there seems to be something missing. But in the Chinese culture, dessert is much less significant. No dessert, nothing is missed. In fact, many Hong Kongers, me included, don't like dessert that much -- especially those that are overly sweet. However, it is popular for restaurants to provide complimentary dessert soup, such as the one made with red bean, sweet potatoes, or from honey dew and tapioca, or almond jello.

[Dejah]

I tried to post this info' last night, but eGullet was experiencing some difficulties?

quote=spaghetttti,Nov 28 2004, 06:17 PM]

What about those milky almond flavored agar-agar cubes served with crushed ice

and fruit cocktail? I tend to think that it's an American Chinese concoction,

would that be correct?

Is the dessert that Dejah makes with agar-agar and egg white swirls typically

Chinese?

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[ComeUndone]

Desserts are actually really popular in the Cantonese culture. You can find many restaurants specializing in desserts in Hong Kong and chinatowns in North America where there's a significant Cantonese population. The good ones are often very crowded late in the evening when people have finish their dinner. Desserts that you can typically find in these restaurants are either the traditional or modern varieties.

Traditional Cantonese desserts are strong in the desert soup variety. Within the dessert soup category, they are roughly divided into the cooked-in-a-pot type and the steamed-in-a-covered-container type. Typical cooked-in-a-pot type dessert soups include red bean porridge, mung bean porridge, black sesame porridge, walnut porridge, cashew porridge, peanut porridge, glutinous rice ball (mochi) filled with black sesame/lotus paste/red bean paste served with a ginger sweet broth, tapioca soup in coconut milk. Most of these can be served cold or hot. Steamed-in-a-covered-container dessert soup are often made with ingredients prized for their medicinal qualities. For example, you will often find red dates (紅 棗), swallow bird nest, snow fungus (雪 耳), lotus seed, almond (南 北 杏 ), papaya, jiggly stuff from female toad's reproductive system (雪 蛤 膏), and pears in some combination or another.

Modern Cantonese dessert takes advantage of the abundant supply of tropical fruit available. These desserts are often served chilled. Some typical offerings include mango/durian crepe, mango pudding, tapioca mixed with fruit, fruit smoothies, and whatever else the chef's creativity comes up with.

Other than dessert soups, there are also some Cantonese desserts that are quite popular. My personal favourites are steamed egg custard, steamed milk set with egg whites, and milk curdled with ginger juice. There are also glutinous rice balls (mochi) filled and/or coated with coconut & nuts, coconut pudding with yellow split peas, red bean pudding, coconut pudding, and black sesame rolls. Most of these pudding are set with agar agar or corn starch. These pudding used to be popular in dim sum restaurants too until recently when less profitable items are taken off the menu.

In a typical Chinese banquet menu, the meal usually ends with a dessert soup and Chinese petit-fours. These petit-fours are usually some sort of flaky lard pastry filled with lotus seed paste or red bean paste.

In Northern Chinese cuisine, dessert is quite different. As mentioned in previous postings, fruit coated in caramel and dipped in ice-bath at the table is popular. Some other items that you will find on the menu include crepe filled with red bean paste, fried meringue filled with red bean paste, and moulded sweet glutinous rice with glace fruit.

There are many other sweet items in Chinese cuisine meant to be eaten at any time of the day. But that's for another day.

[Transparent]

There are quite a few chinese desserts, but since most of them are soups and served as a dinner course, I really don't regard them as such.

What westerners would call desserts are eaten as snacks, mostly.

[yimay]

i'm not really sure that chinese really eat desserts very often... usually just ending meals with some fresh fruit (like the italians!) sweets are usually just mid-day snacks. anyone else want to chime in on this assumption?

my favorite chinese sweets are Dou Hwa (soft tofu in a ginger syrup with sweet boiled peanuts). i also love all the red bean, green bean, longan soups either by themselves or as Bao Bing, over shaved ice. i can also always go for chinese pastries, especially anything with taro in it. Ye Zi Xi Mi Lu, coconut and tapioca soup, is also very tasty. i also love those boiled sesame seed balls surrounded in sticky rice dough. Everything seems to be soupy, huh?

Edited December 16, 2004 by yimay (log)

[yimay]

What about those milky almond flavored agar-agar  cubes served with crushed  ice and fruit cocktail?  I tend to think that it's an American Chinese concoction, would that be correct? 

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No, it's not an American Chinese thing. We ate that in Hong Kong all the time. The closest translation is "Almond Jello", although it's not really jello. Actually the tranlation from Cantonese would be "Almond tofu". Yes, it is considered as a dessert.

in mandarin it's called Xing Ren Dou Fu. the way we make it really is just like jello. instead of water we use milk, add unflavored gelatin, sugar and almond extract.

[origamicrane]

so i think we established that as chinese we don't really have a dessert course in our dinners.

But we do have sweets dishes, drinks and snacks and things that would fit right in as a dessert course.The idea is i want to introduce some of our oriental sweeties to the western world or adapt them to suit western tastes.

So lets talk chinese/oriental sweets, desserts, candy , bubble teas, red bean things, fruit cocktail things, funky ice cream, black sesame paste, super thin pancakes, papaya and sea coral and almond sweet soups, almond/ mango/ tofu puddings, green bean and seaweed sweet soup, taro ice cream, coconut paste, steamed cheesecake, etc etc

[Yuki]

so i think we established that as chinese we don't really have a dessert course in our dinners.

But we do have sweets dishes, drinks and snacks and things that would fit right in as a dessert course.The idea is i want to introduce some of our oriental sweeties to the western world or adapt them to suit western tastes.

So lets talk chinese/oriental sweets, desserts, candy ,  bubble teas, red bean things, fruit cocktail things, funky ice cream, black sesame paste, super thin pancakes, papaya and sea coral and almond sweet soups, almond/ mango/ tofu puddings, green bean and seaweed sweet soup,  taro ice cream, coconut paste, steamed cheesecake, etc etc

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I had the most amazing taro and coconut ice cream in Macau. It was a recommendation from a taxi driver(I had good and bad experience with them.......). The restaurant only sell ice cream, red bean popsicles and simple food(instant noodles, sandwich with luncheon meat...etc). This is like a restaurant from the 60s and their ice cream really is the best. It is simple, and there is only the traditional ice cream flavour like taro, coconut, chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. The taro ice cream is a really pale purple color and tasted like pureed taro mixed with cream. The coconut ice cream tasted like really thick coconut milk. For our souvenir, we brought 30 red bean popsicles and took it back to Hong Kong.

I tried in making almond tofu this weekend but it tasted so bitter due to excessive amount of almont extract.