Must-Try Chinese Desserts That are Not Well Known
Once on a dinner table, we were thinking about whether to have some dessert after dinner. Whenever this question arises, the answer is always — no matter how much we eat, there is always room for dessert. Now that I’m attending college far away from my hometown, sometimes I would miss the dessert I had in China when I was little. The desserts introduced in this article mostly originated in my hometown Hangzhou and hence may not be very famous, but are all super delicious and entail my lovely memories.
麻糍 Mácí (Sticky rice ball)
You may have heard of mochi, a sticky rice dessert with fillings. But actually, this type of glutinous rice dessert has lots of variations near the East Asian area.
The sticky rice ball in my memory was on a tricycle with an elderly woman. When I was in primary school, every day after class, there was an elderly woman with her sticky rice ball cart near the gate of my school. Kids would run at the tricycle and clamor for a small bowl of sticky rice balls. The beaten glutinous rice was in a large wooden bucket. The elderly woman would rotate the handle on the side of the wooden bucket to press and push the sticky rice out of the bucket through two coin-sized holes on the other side of the bucket. Then she would cut the sticky rice strip into small balls and cover them with sweetened soybean and sesame powder. My friends and I bought it from time to time, and it sweetened our way back home.
定胜糕 Dìngshèng gāo (Dingsheng cake)
Dingsheng Cake is a dessert from my hometown Hangzhou. The name Dingsheng means “victory,” and it was originated back in Southern Song Dynasty (AD 960–1127), and was first made to encourage soldiers of the Yue army, led by General Yue Fei who was renowned for defending the Southern Song against invaders from northern China.
Dingsheng Cake is a reddish fluffy cake made from rice powder and sticky rice powder. The cake is traditionally stuffed with red bean paste, but various other fillings are available nowadays.
Its reddish color symbolizes triumph. Now it has become a gift given to students who are going to take exams, especially before the National College Entrance Exam.
桂花酒酿 Guìhuā jiǔniàng (Rice ball with osmanthus and sweet rice wine)
This dessert is called Guihua (osmanthus) jiuniang (sweet rice wine) in Chinese. Osmanthus is my hometown’s city flower. I love every autumn that I can smell the sweetness of osmanthus in the air. When the wind gently breezes, the flowers of osmanthus drift slowly and lightly like drizzle. The fragrance of osmanthus makes it felicitous for making dessert. Another ingredient of Guihua jiuniang is the sweet rice wine (aka. Jiuniang, sweet wine, or sweet fermented rice wine). It is a sweet, soup-like rice wine made by fermenting glutinous rice and distillers’ yeast.
To make Guihua jiuniang, one easy way is to first make some sugar osmanthus. Heat up sugar, rock sugar, honey, and osmanthus until all sugar melts, and you’ll get sugar osmanthus. Then boil some sticky rice balls with rock sugar, add in sweet rice wine and sugar osmanthus, and it’s done. Guihua jiuniang is definitely one of the most popular desserts for every Chinese kid and will always be remembered and missed.
I guess every time when I feel joyful while having dessert, it’s not only the taste that makes me content, but also the feeling that I’m treating myself well, as well as the time that I spent with family and friends while we enjoy dessert. Because “dessert doesn’t go to the stomach, dessert goes to the heart.”
