Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival or the New Lunar Year, marks the beginning of the Chinese Lunar Calendar and involves a 15-Day long celebration, which is full of festivities, food and parades.

Important traditions

The most notable of the traditions revolve around preparing food and the house for the New Year’s Eve banquet. Families and friends are invited to huge banquets. The banquet features some of the best desserts which are an important part of the tradition. Or also known as the Chinese New Year desserts. Let us take you down step by step through the important traditions:

• Spring cleaning

People like to welcome the New Year by cleaning the house thoroughly, to get rid of any bad luck and bad spirits. The sentiment is to welcome the new year in a ‘clean’ slate. This also means settling any disputes or any unfinished business.

• Preparing banners & gifts

Banners with New Year good luck messages are prepared in advance, as are gifts, flowers and red envelopes with money.

• Food Prep: putting away the knives

Food preparation is extremely important as no Chinese should welcome the new year with knives in use. Putting away the knives on the first day of the new year is necessary, as the traditions dictate this can “cut away” the good luck, this also means the need to prepare food in advance.

Traditional Chinese desserts

Some of the must try desserts include:

1. Tang Yuan (Rice dumpling): These sweet rice dumplings are consumed during the 15^th day of the celebration. Families set aside a special time and cook these dumplings together made from glutinous flour made of rice, served with sweet syrup.

2. Candied lotus seeds: Dried lotus seeds covered in sugar and candy, cooked in syrup, are known as the “lucky food” that ensure a long line of offspring.

3. Kamquats: Kamquats are a special fruit for the Chinese, and are known to bring prosperity and riches to the families. This is why kamquats served with coatings of sugar are given as gifts.

4. Eight treasure rice: This chewy rice pudding has a lot of surprises and treasures inside, including red bean, peanuts, prunes and dried apricots.

5. Rice cakes: The Chinese homophone for rice cakes means prosperity. These sweet rice flour cakes are crispy in texture and may be offered with bean paste.

Candied lotus seeds recipe

Here’s a traditional dessert recipe for you to try for the Chinese New Year:

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 cup dried white lotus seeds (rinsed and drained)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup sugar for coating
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Fill half a saucepan with water, and put in the baking soda. Bring to a boil and add dried lotus seeds. Bring to a boil for 3 more times, removing pan each time when water boils and bringing it back to burner again. Then drain the seeds.
2. Rinse the seeds repeatedly and remove bits of skin. Remove green centres if desired.
3. Add 1 cup sugar to a ¼ cup of water in a saucepan. Bring to boil, add lotus seeds and vanilla extract. Simmer for 20 minutes until seeds turn brown and translucent. Cook until little liquid is left.
4. Remove from stove and put seeds on baking sheet. Let them dry.
5. Roll in powdered sugar and allow to dry. Serve with sugary syrup if desired.

Moist rich cakes with bits of fruits are enjoyed throughout the world in wedding and festival celebrations. Fruit cakes also have a rich history of being a part and parcel of most Christmas celebrations and are known to be an especially exotic treat for guests at tea parties.

What makes a fruit cake?

Typically, a fruit cake is a cake with relatively lower flour content, but with a large amount of dried or candied fruit. Heavier and denser versions of the cake may include dried nuts and spices.

What kind of fruits can be used?

A good density fruit cake typically requires 2-3 pounds of dried fruit of very good quality. There are two kinds of fruitcakes:

1. Dark fruitcakes: Which use dark fruits like dates, cranberries, raisins, prunes. Molasses may also be used in dark fruit cakes, along with dark corn syrups.
2. Light fruit cakes: This uses fruits of light colours, like pineapples, apricots, currants and light corn syrup. Often at times, sprinkles of crushed almonds are used as toppings in light fruit cakes.

To make a good density fruit cake, at least half of the weight of ingredients should be fruits.

A list of fruits that may be used are as follows:

• Apples
• Cherries
• Figs
• Apricots
• Pears
• Pineapple
• Peaches
• Prunes
• Cranberries
• Blueberries
• Pears
• Dates
• Raisins
• Currants
• Dried mango
• Banana
• Coconut
• Papaya
• Freshly grated lemon
• Orange peel

Alternatively, you can use many other types of nuts and fruits as well.

Tips for making a good fruit cake

1. Marinating: This is what makes a fruitcake the best dessert. Soaking the fruit in orange juice, wine or any such marinade allows for the fruit to be preserved. The fruit should be soaked for at least 72 hours for the flavours to infuse, fruit to soften and get a proper preservation. This is what makes a fruit cake a good dessert. The rich flavours of the marinated fruits add to a whole new level for a cake.
2. Using fresh nut: Oils in old peanuts can turn rancid, so always use fresh nuts. Chop them up well for a good crunch.
3. Storage: The richest fruit cakes are those where fruit is allowed to ‘mature’ or ‘age’. The cakes are moistened repeatedly with wine or juice or sherry to allow for longer storage.
4. The density of batter: The batter needs to be heavy and dense to allow the fruit to be suspended in the cake if the batter is light, the fruit will sink to the bottom.

How long can a fruitcake last?

The life of your fruit cake is dependent upon its ingredients. A cake that has been matured with alcohol, can last for up to a year in a freezer, while that with dried fruits can last for up to 3 months. However, a fruit cake made solely or partially from fresh fruits will go bad quickly.

General directions for baking fruit cake

1. Chop the fruit (for example a combination of pineapple, cherries, currants and dried sultanas) and soak in the marinade of your choice (orange juice or sherry)
2. Preheat oven to 140 degrees and put in a bowl of water in the oven. Double line baking pan (inside and outside) with baking sheet.
3. In a big bowl beat in cream, butter, icing sugar, egg yolks and put in fruit, marinade and nuts.
4. Beat egg whites to stiffness and fold in with batter.
5. Fill the baking tins and bake for 2-2.5 hours or until the cake turns brown and the toothpick comes clean.

Are you wondering if desserts have any health benefits? You couldn’t miss the fact that many desserts have been proven to have awesome health benefits. Desserts are mostly known for their delicacy, as you will find a lot of people around a dessert place trying to order their favourites from the menu. You will be surprised by the numerous health benefits associated with the desserts that we can find today.

Here is a brief overview of the different health benefits that can find:

Nutrients

Many desserts are rich in Fibre, vitamins and antioxidants which are an essential component for your health. Desserts usually have little carbohydrates. However, there are desserts with a higher level of carbohydrates incorporated, so you can select such desserts if you are looking to increase your carbohydrates level.

Happiness is key to better health

Everyone in this world hopes and wishes to be happy. When served with the favourite dessert, there is no doubt that it will make anyone happy. Through a survey conducted, happiness is a key health benefit. You have seen depressed people suffer from multiple diseases. Taking desserts can be a solution to this kind of diseases. Many desserts contain serotonin, a chemical that usually helps in controlling your emotions. You need to produce serotonin several times in a day to ensure that you control your happiness mood, and these can only be achieved by feeding on your best desserts.

Weight control

Obesity is a killer. You should always strive to ensure that your body have a balanced diet and weight. Visiting dessert places on a daily basis is unhealthy. However, regular visits could help could help you better manage your weight. Cutting off desserts by 100% will only result in cravings and eventually you will end up eating more than the usual. Not many are aware that desserts actually have numerous vitamins which are essential components in helping you control your weight. Chinese desserts are among the healthiest dessert that you can consume such as soups or paste.

Cure extreme cravings from the routine diet

Not every diet you take is of utmost significance to your body. The negative side effects of diet can be completely managed by consuming desserts from time to time. It is essential to give your body a break from a diet routine and enjoy a moderately healthy dessert to help your body to recover from the cravings. Ignoring this could potentially even lead to diseases. Therefore, strike a healthy balance in your diet and work out and treat yourself to good desserts once in a while.

Not forgetting, fruits used in desserts also have its health benefits. As much as fruits are essential for your health, it also helps to improve the immune system. Fruits such as blueberries and raspberries are very significant when it comes to maintaining an outstanding immune system. They can be added to yoghurt and really makes it rich in protein, tasty and have healthy fats.

For sure, taking desserts will be greatly advantageous to our health and body. We could not negate the fact that we need to consume fruits at least once every 2 days. Other than eating the fruits solely, why not try visiting any dessert outlet in Singapore and eat the fruits along with those yummy desserts instead?