Chinese Desserts Recipes

By Author: Jamie Hanson
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When you talk about China, you often think about Chinese food and this is because of its strong bonding with food which is famous worldwide. Lesser known in the West are the Chinese desserts which is normally an assortment of sweets and snacks, possibly fruit, soup, pastry or rice based, to match a tea break. You can eat this either as snacks or after a meal. Chinese desserts include simple ones like lcyhees fruits, coconut balls and candied walnuts, to those often made during special occasions such as Nian Gao or Fa Gao, to exotic ones such as bird's nest soup, red bean soup or black glutinous rice soup, eaten cold or hot with, probably, some 'bings'.

Here are the main classification of Chinese desserts that you should know.

Gao is a tasty snacks made from rice. They vary from province to province and depending upon the method of preparation, the end result may be rather firm or jelly-like, fluffy or chewy in all kinds of shapes and textures. Some of the Gao types include Fa-Gao (Huat Kueh), Nian Gao, Tangyuan and Bai Tang Gao.

Bing are baked confections made of wheat flour. They are like either the flaky ...
... kind of puff pastry (known as 'su' in Chinese) or the short-pastry crust found in Western cuisine. Lard is usually used to make bing for a more tasty flavor. The most popular ones are Wife cake and Mooncake red bean paste cake. Sun cake and Marry Girl Cake are also equally popular.

In Chinese cuisine, candies are normally fruits and nuts, either in the form of paste or whole, mixed into syrup to give them texture and flavor. Honey, malt sugar and cane sugar are used to make Chinese candies or sweets, known as 'tang' in Chinese. Coconut candy, peanut candy, white rabbit creamy candy, tanghulu as well as dragon's beard candy are the popular ones.

The main Chinese sweet dishes also include jellies and they are loved by children and adults alike. Agar is usually used in traditional Chinese jelly desserts, though the use of gelatin has become become quite common. Mango pudding, almond jelly, grass jelly and aiyu jelly are some of the sought-after Chinese jellies dessert.

Tongsui also known as 'tim tong' or 'sugar water' is sweet soup in watery or thick consistency. There are endless varieties of types of this form of Chinese desserts and one can often bump into a store in Hong Kong especially, selling only Tong Sui. Most of the soups can be easily prepared which entails boiling (slow, fast or double boil) the ingredients together and are served hot or cold. Some of the soups are prepared with beautifying and restorative properties. Rock sugar, candied winter melon and honey are often used to sweeten the soup. Douhua (beancurd pudding in sweet soup), bird's nest soup, sweet red bean soup, gingko with white fungus soup, mung bean soup, peanut soup, sweet potato soup, beancurd skin gingko barley soup and almond soup are some of the common Chinese sweet soup desserts.

For a large selection of Chinese recipes and Chinese desserts recipes, visit ChineseFood-Recipes.com.