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June 8, 2017

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

New summer desserts to drive taste buds wild

By Xu Wenwen | 00:01 UTC+8 June 8, 2017 | Print Edition

SUMMER is here and so are all sorts of new iced desserts. Every year, in this season, the consumer gets to choose from the dozens of brands competing against each other when the market is flooded with new products. For example, in last few years we’ve seen the well-reputed rice wine popsicle, 3D-printed popsicle and cloud-alike ice cream.

Inventing new products to grab a market share is a popular move, and making them healthy is the new trend, such as Matcha desserts and yogurt ice cream. This is because in China people prefer less-sugary recipes, and favor natural ingredients.

In the tourist city of Hangzhou, dessert stores are springing up all over the place.

Today Shanghai Daily visits three brands that are receiving lines for their newly-promoted unique iced desserts.

Black Samurai ice cream @ Tingxi Japanese Dessert Store

Chocolate ice cream is common but Black Samurai is unique because of its pure heavy black color, from tip to cone.

Produced by Tingxi Japanese Dessert Store in Hangzhou, the cream became quite popular. They not only pursue its sweet chocolate taste and smooth texture, but also the Gothicism of getting their tongue and lips black.

According to the dessert store, Belgium chocolate is largely used in the cream and the owner employed a special recipe to make it purely black. It is recommended if you are a sweet tooth, and prefer a light and healthy recipe, try the store’s signature — Matcha ice cream or Matcha jelly.

 

• Powerlong branch

Address: 3/F, 3867 Binsheng Rd

Tel: 136-7587-6669

• Paradise Walk branch

Address: 3/F, 560 Jinsha Ave

Tel: (0571) 8725-5596

Siem Reap Coconut Milk Smoothies @ Khmer Sweets

The only Cambodian dessert store in the city was opened a month ago by backpacker Bao Xiaodi, who is also a huge fan of Khmer sweets.

Bao used to work as an executive in an international company but turned her back on that to enjoy a life she favors more: making smoothies. The dessert lover wakes up at 7am every day and works until 10pm at her small store with only four seats.

Smoothies are rarely seen in China, of course, and the same can be said about Cambodia. But Bao learned the recipe from a local booth on a humble street corner she just happened to come across.

“It was not a tourist-going place but a local-loving spot,” said Bao. Yet after one bowl of smoothie she fell in love with it.

Bao could not forget the delicacy, so she flew to Siem Reap again and persuaded the booth owner to teach her.

“She finally said yes because I am a foreigner,” said Bao who also hired a translator for the lessons.

The signature in Bao’s small booth is the Siem Reap smoothie. It is priced at 18 yuan (US$2.65) and includes seven traditional Cambodian snacks. It combines sticky rice, coconut milk, mung bean or dug egg, honey, condensed milk and ice and is served in a silver-gilt bowl. The store also provides 22-yuan mango coconut milk rice, and 35-yuan jackfruit and mango smoothies.

 

Address: 10 Hedong Rd

Tel: 137-5818-2256

Coconut custard @ Foodie Coconut Booth

Coconut custard is a dessert contained in a coconut shell and tastes like jelly. It is a widely seen dessert in southeastern Asia countries, yet Foodie Coconut Booth is the first shop in Hangzhou that specializes at making it.

The owner, Zhang Daqing, in her 20s learned the recipe while living in Thailand. And because she insists on making all her products on her own, all the custards are fresh, unlike those frozen ones in supermarkets.

Zhang’s coconut custard features two layers: the above is white and tastes milky, while the lower layer is transparent and tastes light, more like coconut water jelly.

The reason lies in the recipe.

Zhang crushes coconut meat, whips the flesh and water together, boils them with some evaporated milk, and finally cools the coconut. Naturally the liquid subsides and goes layered when frozen.

A spoon-shaped saw is served with the coconut, for shredding the meat from the lid of the crust. This ensured the consumer can enjoy the creamy coconut jelly, the light coconut water jelly, the shredded coconut flesh, or, all three in one with just one spoonful.

With similar methods, Zhang also invented custards of passion fruit, mango, pineapple, papaya, orange, and grapefruit, all without additives but lots of fruit flesh.

• Nanshan branch

Address: 168-1 Nanshan Rd

Tel: (0571) 2822-7978

• Wulin branch

Address: D-12 Booth, 1/F, Xihu D11 Complex, 163 Wulin Rd

Tel: 156-5888-1990

Hangzhou


 

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