Asian desserts include a wide range of sweet foods such as cakes, pastries, candies, and jellies. Regional cuisines like Chinese and Japanese offer unique variations using ingredients like durian fruit and bean paste. Sweet drinks and soups like tongsui are also popular.
Desserts are generally understood as sweet foods eaten after a main meal. Almost any sweet food can work as a dessert option. These types of desserts might include the following: cakes, cookies, pastries, creams, candies, and cakes. Regional cuisines like Asian cuisines offer many variations of these desserts. Typical Asian food ingredients such as agar, bean paste, and durian fruit help create unique examples of Asian desserts: gao, ting, and tongsui, among others.
As the largest continent, Asia boasts of many varieties of food from its different regions. The enormity of China marks it as a major producer of desserts. Japan also offers a wide range of East Asian desserts. Middle Eastern regions add some sweet preferences to Asian desserts, as do portions of Russia.
Sweets are especially popular Asian desserts. Rice-based pastries dubbed gao are versatile and can come in soft or firm textures, and glutinous rice cakes are also quite popular. In China, wheat flour pastries known as bing play an important role.
Bing’s sub-categories range from sun and moon cakes to wife cakes. Sweet toppings or fillings such as glutinous rice and sweet red or green bean paste also populate many Asian desserts. Syrups infuse layered, nutty pastries called baklava.
Honeys and syrups are also found in many other types of Asian desserts. In fact, ting candies are sometimes made up almost entirely of syrups made from malt or brown sugar. Sweet drinks and creams made from syrup and milk strongly influence some regions like India.
Other favorite dessert ingredients are popular in Asian desserts. Nuts such as chestnuts are common, as are fruits, particularly the durian fruit. Some regions like Russia simply prefer chilled fruits covered in sweet sauce. Strawberries Romanoff is an example of a simplified fruit-based Asian dessert dish.
Certain types of Asian desserts may possess the moniker popsicle. Many Asians are fond of ice cream and the frozen dessert can go by this shortened name. Green tea-based ice creams are particularly popular in some regions such as Japan, where the confection may be covered with a rice-based dough. In addition to Asian desserts made from candies and custard, the syrups can be combined with crushed ice for a sweet drink-like dessert. Additionally, a gelatin-like material called agar is often used to create Asian jellies, which are also referred to as ices.
Although people generally do not associate soups with the dessert course, various dessert soups are available in Asia. These common liquid confections consist of sweet ingredients and spices, usually heated. Many recipes further combine custard for a creamier soup. Collectively, these soups are often known as tongsui. Specific varieties include red bean soup, steamed custard, and sweet potato soup.
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