Chinese food is praised for its flavorful and varied cuisines, but its traditional sweets also merit special attention. Chinese desserts have a rich cultural and historical background and provide an insight into the culinary artistry and legacy of the country. From the delicate textures of red bean soup to the elaborate layers of mooncakes, every dessert narrates a tale of seasonal festivities and local influences. This article explores the world of traditional sweets, along with the special ingredients, cooking techniques, and cultural significance of these mouthwatering delicacies. Come along for a delightful culinary tour of China.
This dessert is a traditional Chinese sweet soup, known for its health benefits, particularly in treating dry coughs. It's made with snow fungus, which nourishes the body, lungs, and stomach, and red dates rich in vitamins. The recipe involves simmering snow fungus, pear wedges, and red dates in water, then sweetened with rock sugar. It's simple to prepare, taking about 30 minutes of simmering time. The soup is refreshing when served chilled, making it perfect for humid weather.
This dessert is a traditional Chinese treat that combines a crispy exterior with a creamy, milky interior. It's made with just three ingredients: milk, corn starch, and sugar. The milk mixture is cooked until thick, chilled, cut into pieces, then coated with corn starch and panko for frying. The result is a light, not overly sweet dessert, often served with condensed milk or powdered sugar. It's a simple recipe, perfect for an after-dinner treat or afternoon snack.
This dessert is a Chinese pumpkin cake featuring a crispy, golden crust with a sticky, mochi-like inside and a sweet red bean paste filling. It's a simple recipe that includes just a few ingredients like pumpkin puree and glutinous rice flour. The cakes are formed into small, filled pancakes that are either deep-fried or cooked in an air fryer. This dish serves as a delightful and healthy dessert or snack, especially during Chinese festivals, and is both gluten-free and vegan-friendly.
This is a recipe for a traditional Chinese pastry, known for its flaky, multi-layered texture and a sweet winter melon filling. The pastry combines two types of dough - water dough and lard dough - to create its unique texture. The filling is a mix of candied winter melon, sesame seeds, and coconut, offering a delightful contrast to the pastry. Although the preparation process is somewhat intricate, involving rolling and layering the doughs, the result is a deliciously crisp and sweet treat.
This dessert is a traditional Chinese almond jelly, often found in dim sum restaurants. It's a refreshing and simple-to-make dessert, suitable for serving after meals or as a snack. The recipe calls for agar agar strips, rock sugar, soy milk, and almond powder. The mixture is cooked, strained, and then chilled in the fridge, preferably overnight. Once set, it's cut into cubes and can be served with fresh or canned fruits, making it a versatile and delightful treat.
This webpage features a recipe for a traditional Chinese cookie, known for its crisp and buttery texture with a subtle almond flavor. These cookies are simple to make, requiring basic ingredients like unsalted butter, sugar, egg, almond extract, flour, baking soda, salt, and whole almonds. The recipe involves mixing these ingredients to form a dough, shaping into balls, and baking until golden brown. These cookies are often associated with Chinese New Year celebrations and are a perfect treat for those who enjoy a hint of almond in their desserts.
This dessert is a popular Chinese treat, created with lightly sweetened mung bean paste. The recipe is straightforward and doesn't take long to make. It includes cooking split mung beans to form a paste, which is then mixed with butter, oil, and sugar. The paste can be colored using organic food powders and is then molded into shapes using cake molds. It's a refreshing summer dessert, offering health benefits from the antioxidants in the mung beans.
This dessert is a modern twist on a traditional Chinese dish, featuring lightly sweetened sticky rice filled with red bean paste. It's topped with a selection of dried fruits and seeds, such as jujubes, pumpkin seeds, and golden raisins. The dish is complemented by a homemade chrysanthemum syrup, adding a unique, earthy aroma. This vegan and gluten-free dessert is perfect for Chinese New Year celebrations, offering a lighter, healthier option that's easy to prepare.
This dessert is a traditional Chinese snack, resembling American Rice Krispie treats but made with deep-fried egg noodle strands. The recipe involves creating a dough similar to egg noodles, deep frying it until puffy, and then binding the pieces with a sweet syrup. Additional ingredients like nuts, raisins, and seeds can be added for extra flavor. The final product is cut into squares and can be stored for weeks, making it a popular and long-lasting snack.
This dessert is a classic southern Chinese dish known for its delicate, translucent layers. Made primarily with tapioca flour and brown sugar, it's steamed in a wok, creating a chewy, moist texture. The process involves pouring and steaming the batter layer by layer, which results in a beautiful, multi-layered appearance. It's a lightly sweet treat, perfect as a snack or dessert, especially during celebrations like the Lunar New Year. The recipe is simple yet requires careful attention to achieve the perfect texture.
This dessert is a unique blend of rich chocolate flavor with the earthy, spicy notes of Chinese five-spice powder. The recipe is straightforward, combining classic cake ingredients with the five-spice blend for a distinctive taste. It includes steps for preparing a smooth chocolate ganache to top the cake. This treat is presented as an easy and unique addition to holiday dinners, offering a global twist to traditional chocolate cake with its blend of clove, fennel, star anise, and cinnamon.
This recipe is for a unique Chinese bun with a creamy, savory filling made from salted egg yolks. The process involves making a soft dough, filling it with a mixture of cooked salted egg yolks, butter, sugar, and other ingredients, and then steaming the buns. When served hot, the buns reveal a smooth, rich, and flowing egg yolk center, reminiscent of lava. They are ideal for breakfast or as a snack, especially when paired with tea.
This webpage features a recipe that combines the sweetness of jujube dates with the chewy texture of sticky rice to create a traditional Chinese dessert. The cake is made using sweet rice flour, jujube date puree or jam, sugar, water, and oil. After preparing the batter, it can be steamed either on a stovetop or in an Instant Pot. This dessert is often enjoyed during Chinese New Year and offers a rich, sweet flavor with a unique, sticky texture.
This recipe is a delightful take on a traditional Chinese treat, made with a blend of crushed toasted walnuts incorporated into a cookie batter. The key to its flavor is the use of quality butter and a balanced amount of sugar, ensuring the walnut flavor isn't overwhelmed. The preparation process is relatively easy, involving the creaming of butter and sugar, mixing in the rest of the ingredients, and baking until golden brown. These cookies are a favorite during Chinese New Year for their nutty, fragrant taste.
This webpage presents a recipe for a traditional Chinese dessert known for its refreshing and slightly sweet taste. The recipe uses water chestnut flour and cornstarch to create a smooth, jelly-like cake, sweetened with rock sugar. Fresh, frozen, or canned water chestnuts are added to the mixture for a unique texture. The cake is steamed until it becomes translucent, then cooled and cut into pieces. It can be enjoyed hot or pan-fried for a different texture.
This dessert is a Chinese steamed cake traditionally made to celebrate the Lunar New Year, symbolizing prosperity and wealth. The recipe includes a unique blend of flours, including cake mix, all-purpose or cake flour, and glutinous rice flour. Additionally, it features spices such as ginger and cardamom for added flavor. The batter is poured into muffin cups, steamed until they blossom into a flower-like top, and served warm. It's a festive treat with a blend of traditional and modern flavors.
This webpage presents a recipe for a traditional Chinese steamed bun, featuring a soft and fluffy dough filled with a sweet, creamy red bean paste. The recipe includes a step-by-step guide for making both the dough and the homemade red bean paste, which uses adzuki beans, sugar, and butter. It also provides tips for ensuring the buns are perfectly fluffy and don't collapse after steaming. These buns are a popular choice for breakfast, snacks, or dinner, and are particularly associated with Chinese New Year in northern China.
This recipe is a soothing and nourishing Chinese dessert, ideal for treating dry coughs or sore throats. It involves steaming a pear, usually a large Asian variety, with rock sugar to sweeten it. Additional ingredients like goji berries and red dates are added for flavor. The steaming process, lasting about 40 to 60 minutes, ensures the pear is soft and infused with the sweetness of the sugar and the aroma of the added fruits. This dessert can be served either warm or chilled.
This webpage provides a detailed guide on making a traditional Chinese pastry. The recipe involves making a dough with glutinous rice flour, then filling it with either sweet red bean paste or a homemade peanut and honey mixture. The dough balls are then rolled in sesame seeds and can be either deep-fried or air-fried. The result is a crispy, golden brown exterior with a sweet, flavorful filling, perfect for enjoying as a snack or a dessert.
This dessert is a smooth and silky tofu pudding, made using a straightforward method with gelatin sheets and soy milk. To enhance its flavor, it can be served with either a homemade ginger syrup or additional cold soy milk. The ginger syrup is prepared using brown and rock sugar, water, and ginger slices. This vegan-friendly pudding is a light and refreshing choice, ideal for a snack or dessert, and is best enjoyed cold or at room temperature.
This webpage features a traditional Chinese street food recipe, focusing on hawthorn fruit coated in a shiny, crisp layer of sugar. The preparation involves stringing hawthorn fruits on bamboo sticks and enveloping them in a caramelized sugar syrup. This classic treat, known for its sweet and tangy flavor, is simple to make, requiring basic ingredients like sugar, water, and hawthorn fruit. The recipe provides step-by-step instructions, ensuring a delightful and authentic experience of a popular snack from China.
This webpage offers a recipe for a traditional Chinese candy, a hand-pulled treat resembling cotton candy but with a more intricate texture. The recipe involves creating a sugar syrup, which is then pulled and stretched to form thousands of thin strands. The process requires patience and skill to achieve the candy's signature fine threads. The candy is often flavored with sesame or other ingredients, resulting in a delicate and unique sweet treat.
This recipe describes a traditional Taiwanese dessert made with just three ingredients, offering a chewy and soft texture. It's a simple, gluten-free dish that can be served either cold with shaved ice or warm in sweet syrup soup, making it versatile for different seasons. The preparation involves boiling a portion of the dough to enhance chewiness, a unique technique passed down from the author's grandmother. The recipe allows for bulk preparation and freezing, ensuring a quick and easy dessert option anytime.
This recipe is a delightful guide to creating homemade fortune cookies, perfect for customizing with personal messages. Ideal for utilizing leftover egg whites, the process involves simple pantry ingredients and a touch of creativity in crafting your own fortunes. The cookies require precise baking and shaping, but with practice, even a novice can master the technique. The recipe is adaptable, allowing the inclusion of different flavor extracts for varied tastes. These cookies can be a fun addition to any gathering, offering a unique and personalized touch.
24 Chinese Desserts
Traditional Chinese desserts are often sweet, delicate, and beautifully presented, featuring ingredients like red bean, lotus seeds, and sticky rice.
Ingredients
- Snow Fungus and Pear Sweet Soup
- Deep Fried Milk
- Chinese Pumpkin Cake
- Winter Melon Puffs
- Chinese Almond Jelly
- Chinese Almond Cookies
- Mung Bean Cake
- Eight Treasure Rice
- Sachima
- Tapioca Thousand Layer Cake
- Chocolate Chinese Five Spice Cake
- Salted Egg Yolk Lava Bun
- Chinese Jujube Date Sticky Rice Cake
- Chinese Walnut Cookies
- Water Chestnut Cake
- Fat Goh
- Red Bean Buns
- Steamed Pear with Rock Sugar
- Chinese Crispy Sesame Balls
- Tofu Pudding
- Sugar Coated Haws On A Stick
- Dragons Beard
- Tangyuan
- Chinese Fortune Cookies
Instructions
- Go for a Recipe You Love
- Get Your Ingredients Ready
- Follow the Cooking Steps
- Enjoy Your Meal
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