Asian Fusion Desserts

In high school, I took a Food Technology class for 2 years where I developed a Chinese fusion cheesecake using sago (西米) to give it a chewy texture, sort of like the tapioca in bubble tea. I find it easy to turn down a sickeningly sweet chocolate mousse after dinner, but when it's a Chinese dessert, you'll have to pry me away from it. In Vancouver one time after I'd put on the freshman 15, my dad said I should lay off my favorite purple rice sago coconut milk soup (椰汁紫米露) because I was a bit blubbery and he had to wrench it off me screaming and kicking. I love it quite literally like a fat kid loves cake.

I don't see a lot of Chinese Western fusion desserts, and am always appreciative when I see it attempted. At the Starbucks in Hong Kong, they sell slices of Green Tea Tofu Cheesecake (pictured below) for HKD$27 (USD$4). The tofu isn't even churned in, you can see an entire cube of tofu lodged right at the bottom yellow layer of mousse. Spot the bean curd!















I tried it for the first time last summer, and I found the taste of tofu too overwhelming. This time around, the green tea cheesecake layer tasted more dominant and the tofu complemented the green tea perfectly in texture and taste. I'd brought it home so my parents ate it while sipping hot Chinese tea, which balanced the sweetness of the cake. The green tea is probably made from matcha (green tea powder), which is used to give the grassy green colour and it's flavor. Anyway, I thought this green tea tofu cake would only be a temporary item at Starbucks, but it's already been there for a year. My mum said that in the fashion industry, when a garment is so popular that it's sold at all times of the year, it's called an 'ongoing' product. And I'm sure this green tea tofu cake must have been received very well to have become 'ongoing.'

I went for dim sum in Tin Shui Wai where they served a pumpkin sago soup (pictured below) for dessert costing HKD$5 (USD$0.60) Now, pumpkins are a very Western ingredient and not used often in Chinese cooking, so to see pumpkin in a Chinese dessert counts as fusion. Fun attempt, and the pumpkin's sunny orange color is so refreshing, but the pumpkin tastes a bit awkward with the coconut milk. I prefer the original with purple rice, after all, classics are classics for a reason.


Bon voyage,
Jenny Cheng