9 Taiwanese Desserts You Need to Try in Taiwan
Taiwan is mostly known for the delicious street food found at the bustling night markets and street vendors across the country. However under the surface you'll find a country with a prominent sweet tooth and a love for all things sugary. Traditional desserts in Taiwan have seen a surge in popularity both in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia, as locals experiment with adding new flavors and twists to create delicious new sweet treats.
Douhua Taiwanese Tofu Pudding
A kind of Taiwanese dessert made from silky soft tofu, douhua is popular with Chinese communities all over the world but particularly so in Taiwan where it's often accompanied with a colorful variety of toppings. While the basic and traditional version usually contains peanuts and a sweet syrup, you can usually a mix of toppings such as adzuki beans, taro, tangyuan, sweet green beans, tapioca pearls and sometimes other new non-traditional additions. Most douhua shops serve both hot and iced versions to order.
Taiwanese Brown Sugar Cake (Hei Tang Gao)
A specialty of the offshore islands of Penghu, Hei Tang Gao or Taiwanese Brown Sugar Cake is steamed in a bamboo basket to give it both a unique flavor and delicious fluffy yet moist texture to it. It's not as commonly found as some of the other famous Taiwan desserts, but some cafes and souvenir shops in Taipei will sell it too, it's worth the extra effort to find.
Bubble Milk Tea
Taiwan's craze for this milk tea meets dessert drink has long since reached far around the world. Despite the recent popularity, bubble milk tea or boba tea was first created in Taichung in the 80s by local tea shop Chun Shui Tang. For the uninitiated , bubble tea is made with sweet tapioca pearls that have a chewy texture, mixed with sweet milk tea. There are drinks shops on almost every street and street corner around Taiwan and almost all of them serve their own style of bubble milk tea.
Most drink shops have since strayed from the classic, adding brown sugar, Japanese pudding and other additions to make theirs stand out.
Tangyuan Taiwanese Sweet Dumplings
Traditionally eaten during the Taiwanese Lantern Festival and often other major events and festivals, Tangyuan are a dessert in Taiwan that are made of rice flour and often with sweet fillings and served in a hot broth. Similar to mochi, tangyuan are chewy and usually filled with sweet sesame paste but you'll find other creations such as chocolate tangyuan and jam-filled ones along with plain unfilled tangyuan. The little balls of joy are then boiled and served in a sweet syrupy soup but there are also chilled ice versions of the dish too. Iced tangyuan are often served with other extras and toppings like what's often added to douhua. Read More…
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