By: Julia Aidan
Submitted: 2011-07-29 21:54:45 | Word Count: 508
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 typically a variety of sweets and snacks, either fruit, soup, pastry or rice based, to match a tea break. These can also be eaten following the main course or as a snack. Chinese desserts consist of simple ones like lcyhees fruits, coconut balls and candied walnuts, to those often served during festivals 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'.
Let us take a look at the various groups of Chinese desserts.
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Gao is a tasty snacks made from rice. They are different from region to region and depending upon the method of preparation, the end result may be chewy or fluffy, jelly-like or firm in all kinds of shapes and textures. Fa-Gao (Huat Kuih), Tang Yuan, Bai Tang Gao and Nian Gao are different types of popular Gaos.
Bing are wheat flour based baked confections. They are like either the flaky kind of puff pastry (known as 'su' in Chinese) or the short-pastry crust found in Western pastries. Lard is usually used to make bing for a more tasty flavor. The most popular bings are Wife cake and Mooncake red bean paste cake. Similarly, Marry Girl Cake and Sun Cake are equally popular too.
In Chinese cuisine, candies are more often than not fruits and nuts, either in the form of paste or whole, mixed into syrup to give them flavor or texture. 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 and dragon beard candy are among the favorite.
The main Chinese sweet dishes also include jellies and they are loved by kids and adults alike. Agar is often used in traditional Chinese jelly desserts, although the use of gelatin is now become pretty common. Mango pudding, grass jelly, almond jelly, and aiyu jelly are some of the more popular Chinese jellies dessert.
form. There are a wide variety of this form of Chinese desserts and one can often find a store in Hong Kong especially, selling solely Tong Sui. Most of the soups can be easily prepared which entails boiling (slow, fast or double boil) the ingredients together and can be served hot or iced. Some Tong Sui possess medicinal value depending on the ingredients used. Rock sugar, candied winter melon and honey are often used to sweeten the soup. Douhua (beancurd pudding in sweet soup), sweet red bean soup, bird's nest soup, gingko with white fungus soup, mung bean soup, sweet potato soup, peanut soup, almond soup and gingko barley soup are some of the common Chinese sweet soup desserts.
