Desserts

Desserts Recipes

404 recipes. Page 2 of 17

Sweet dessert and snack recipes

Angel Food Cake

No butter, no oil, no yolks: this tall white ring cake rises entirely on whipped egg whites folded with cake flour and sugar. It likely appeared in late 19th-century America as a way to use whites left over from custard making. The top has a slight marshmallow chew over a cloud-light crumb. The pan goes upside down the moment it leaves the oven, because cooling right side up lets the delicate foam sink under its own weight. Fresh berries and whipped cream are the traditional companions.

Prep 20min Cook 35min 4 servings

Rice Hard

Hasune-mochi (Steamed Lotus Root Stuffed with Rice)

Sliced, each round shows white and pale pink glutinous rice packed into the channels of the lotus root, a red-and-white pattern meant for celebrations in Kadoma, Osaka. Lotus root counts as auspicious because its open holes suggest a clear view of the future, and the clay soil of Kawachi and Kadoma has grown it since the Edo period. After about 2 hours of steaming, the root turns sweet with a light crispness while the rice becomes chewy. Served in 8mm slices with kinako and sweet azuki paste, it eats like a dessert.

At least 10 hr 30 min 4 servings

Street food Medium

Korean Dalgona Candy (Caramel Honeycomb Baking Soda Sugar Candy)

When baking soda hits the melted sugar, the caramel foams up and sets into a light, brittle honeycomb candy. Once the soda is added, there are only about 5 seconds of vigorous stirring before the foam starts to collapse.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes

Prep 8min Cook 10min 4 servings

Desserts Easy

Anmitsu (Japanese Agar Jelly Red Bean Fruit Dessert)

Cubes of agar jelly that snap cleanly under a knife sit among fruit, chewy mochi, and red bean paste, and brown sugar syrup poured just before eating ties them together. Anmitsu grew out of mitsumame, agar with boiled beans, when red bean paste was added in the Meiji era.

Prep 20min Cook 10min 2 servings

Drinks Easy

Watermelon Punch

Half the watermelon is blended and strained, and the other half is scooped into balls to float in the bowl. The strained juice has to be properly cold before the milk goes in, or the pink base can separate. Lemon-lime soda is poured in just before eating, along with strawberries and blueberries.

Prep 15min Cook 5min 4 servings

Baking Medium

Anpan (Japanese Sweet Red Bean Filled Soft Milk Bun)

Soft milk bread wrapped around a generous ball of sweet red bean paste, anpan dates to 1874, when the Kimuraya bakery in Tokyo's Ginza paired Western bread with Japanese bean confectionery. The enriched dough with milk, butter, and egg bakes into a cottony crumb that pulls apart in strands. This version tops each bun with black sesame seeds.

Prep 30min Cook 15min 8 servings

Rice Hard

Yan-gome (Roasted Rice Cooked with Sweet Azuki)

Roasting the soaked rice in oil and cooling it before cooking it in sweet azuki broth keeps the grains loose and fragrant, unlike sticky sekihan, which it otherwise resembles. On the Boso Peninsula in Chiba it was offered at the Obon welcoming and farewell fires, at harvest prayers, and at celebrations after rice planting.

Prep 30min Cook 90min 5 servings

Street food Easy

Korean Street Waffle (Crispy Folded Waffle with Jam and Cream)

Crisp waffles are spread on one half with strawberry jam and whipped cream, then folded over to eat by hand. Each one is filled and served right away, before the warm waffle softens the whipped cream.

Prep 12min Cook 10min 2 servings

Desserts Easy

Steamed White Rice Cake (Soft Crumbly Korean Traditional Rice Dessert)

Steamed from plain rice flour with only a little sugar, this white cake tastes mostly of clean rice sweetness. Sifting the dampened flour two or three times traps air between the grains, and that air is what lets it break into soft, sandy crumbs instead of steaming up hard.

Prep 20min Cook 25min 4 servings

Baking Hard

Apple Cinnamon Rolls (Soft Yeast Dough with Apple Cinnamon Filling)

Diced apple is scattered over the brown sugar and cinnamon filling before the dough is rolled, so the baked swirls are studded with soft, juicy bits of fruit. The rolls bake pressed together in the pan, and their sides tear apart tender when you pull one off.

Prep 40min Cook 22min 4 servings

Rice Easy

Korean Milk Rice Porridge

The rice is ground only coarsely and cooked in water first, and the porridge keeps a little more texture than a smooth gruel. Milk goes in two or three additions, and only after the rice starch has thickened the pot, or it may split. Topped with pine nuts and a pinch of cinnamon, this milk porridge appears in Joseon-era court records.

Prep 15min Cook 25min 2 servings

Street food Medium

Korean Chrysanthemum Bean Cakes

Baked in a chrysanthemum-shaped mold, the shell comes out with raised petal ridges. It is a winter street snack like bungeoppang, but milk, egg and butter in the batter make it taste more of bread, with a smaller share of red bean paste. Vendors now also fill them with custard cream, chocolate or sweet potato paste.

Prep 20min Cook 18min 4 servings

Desserts Medium

Bam Tiramisu (Chestnut Tiramisu)

Mashing home-cooked chestnuts into the mascarpone, instead of using a smooth commercial paste, leaves a fine graininess in every spoonful. A few chopped chestnuts scattered over the top give it something to bite.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 20min Cook 5min 2 servings

Baking Easy

Apple Crumble

Rationing of butter and sugar in Britain during the Second World War made double-crust pastry hard to justify, and a rubbed-in topping of flour, oats and butter took its place. In the oven the cinnamon-spiced apples slump into a thick, bubbling sauce while the topping crisps on its peaks and stays moist where it meets the juice.

Prep 20min Cook 35min 6 servings

Rice Medium

Korean Sweet Glutinous Rice

Eaten at Jeongwol Daeboreum, the first full moon of the lunar year, yakbap sits closer to a sweet snack than a side of rice. Glutinous rice goes through the steamer twice: once plain, then again after it has been tossed with a warm syrup of soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, and cinnamon. That second steaming turns every grain glossy brown and chewy, with jujubes, chestnuts, and pine nuts tucked throughout.

🍱 Lunchbox

Prep 30min Cook 45min 4 servings

Street food Easy

Korean Roasted Sweet Potato

Roasted whole in the skin for a long time, sweet potatoes turn sticky and honey-like just under the skin. Pumpkin sweet potatoes (hobak-goguma) come out moister, and a day or two at room temperature before roasting makes them sweeter still. Butter, honey and cinnamon can go on top once they are done.

Prep 5min Cook 40min 2 servings

Desserts Medium

Chestnut Sweet Jelly (Korean Agar-Set Chestnut White Bean Confection)

Agar sets this chestnut confection firm enough to slice cleanly, and each cut face shows the fine grain of sieved chestnut worked into white bean paste. It is a common holiday gift in Korea, and a block stays in good shape in the fridge for about a week.

Prep 20min Cook 15min 2 servings

Baking Medium

Classic Apple Pie

The cornstarch tossed with the apples is what lets this pie slice cleanly: it catches the juice the fruit releases and sets it into a glossy syrup. The dish has English and Dutch roots going back to the 14th century, and Americans have baked it since colonial times. The apples sit between two sheets of crust, with slits on top to let steam out. Serve it warm with vanilla ice cream, a la mode, or beside a slice of cheddar as in New England.

Prep 45min Cook 55min 8 servings

Rice Medium

Sweet Rice Honey Muffins

Baked in a muffin tin, yakbap comes out in pieces you can pick up one at a time. The soaked glutinous rice sits in soy sauce, dark brown sugar, honey and sesame oil for 20 minutes before going into the cups with diced chestnuts and slivered jujubes. Pine nuts on top toast in the 180°C oven along with them.

Prep 25min Cook 30min 4 servings

Street food Easy

Korean Roasted Chestnuts

When the X cut in each chestnut shell curls open into a V in the oven, they are done. The cut goes just short of the inner skin: too shallow and the shell will not peel, too deep and the nut splits. Wrapped in a dry towel for about five minutes after roasting, the inner skin loosens and comes away easily.

Prep 10min Cook 25min 2 servings

Desserts Easy

Banana Pudding

Vanilla wafers start out crisp and, after a night in the fridge, turn soft and cakey from the custard around them. That change is the point of this Southern American layered dessert, which needs only a saucepan for the custard and no oven at all. The bananas need to be fully ripe; underripe ones leave an astringent edge against the sweet cream.

Prep 20min Cook 10min 4 servings

Baking Easy

Apple Turnover

Folded into triangles, these turnovers carry on a medieval European habit of baking fruit in pastry, and by the 17th century they were sold as hand-held snacks at French and English market stalls. The apples are cooked down in a pan first with butter, sugar and cinnamon, so they enter the oven already soft and jammy rather than raw and wet. Heat turns the moisture between the puff pastry layers into steam that pushes them apart, and the egg wash gives the top a lacquered, deep golden finish. The shattering crust is at its best in the first few minutes out of the oven.

Prep 20min Cook 22min 6 servings

Rice Medium

Yaksik (Sweet Glutinous Rice with Jujubes and Chestnuts)

Only honey sweetens this yaksik and no caramel goes in, so it stays lighter than the deep brown versions, with each glutinous rice grain still visible around the jujubes and chestnuts. Cinnamon and sesame oil carry the aroma, and soy sauce leaves a savory note between the sweet bites. The rice is steamed plain until no hard core remains, seasoned in a bowl, then steamed again, so set aside most of a day counting the 5-hour soak.

Prep 340min Cook 100min 4 servings

Street food Easy

Korean Street Egg Bread (Sweet Batter Muffin with Whole Egg)

Each muffin cup gets sweet batter halfway up, a little chopped ham, and a whole egg cracked on top before baking. You see it often on Seoul streets in winter, and paper muffin cups give the same shape without a special pan.

Prep 15min Cook 18min 4 servings