Whether it is street food or an important banquet, desserts will always appear on the tables of Kunming people. There are many varieties, but the taste experience is what brings infinite joy to people. During the hot days, taste the traditional Kunming desserts and make your summer sweet.
TiaoGao Oufen (Lotus root starch with glutinous rice cake and rose brown sugar syrup)
The TiaoGao Oufen is an excellent combination of multiple tastes. Yunnan is a gathering place for wetland lakes and a paradise for lotus roots. But fresh lotus roots are difficult to store, so people - through grinding and baking - make lotus root starch to keep, so that they can taste the summer food at any time.
Zengzi is an ancient kitchenware, mainly used to steam rice. In order to cook the traditional TiaoGao Oufen, a rice cooker can be used, but most restaurants still use Zengzi to make glutinous rice cake.
When the glutinous rice cake is nearly cooked, you have to quickly to make the Oufen (Louts root starch), to ensure that both temperatures and taste are just right.
Finally, put the glutinous rice cake into the Oufen, add some confectionaries, raisins, sesames as decoration, together with brown sugar sauce or rose sugar sauce to enhance the sweetness of the taste.
Modeng Baba（Morden Pancake）
It may be the strangest name of a Kunming local dessert. But it is very delicious and leaves a deep impression on all those who enjoy it.
In 1941, Lieutenant General Chen Nad of the US Army Air Force formed the Flying Tigers in Kunming, and many Americans also came to Wujiaba, Kunming.
Due to the uniform distribution of US military supplies, many soldiers would bring their unused cigarettes, butter, and other supplies to the market to exchange goods that Kunming people usually need.
At that time, a pancake shop, run by two sisters, tried try to add the butter into flour to make pancakes.
The butter give a richer milky smell and softer taste to Modern Baba. The special taste attracted many people to try it.
Butter was rare in Kunming back then. Many people thought it was a modern product and American soldiers always said the word modern to the sisters. Therefore, some people combined these characteristics and called the face of this new invention "Modern Baba.”
Rose Flower Cake
The Rose Flower Cake is not only a special dessert in Kunming, but also serves as a business card for Spring City cuisine. Many tourists will bring two or three boxes of Rose Flower Cake as a gift to their relatives and friends.
Rose Flower Cakes have high quality requirements for fillings, to preserve the fresh fragrance of the flowers as much as possible.
Once picked, roses are manually screened and stored in freezers or transported by refrigerated trucks to factory for processing.
To make Rose Flower Cake the first important step is to make the filling. Petals need to be crushed together, then honey and sugar added before putting into refrigeration, to reduce bitterness.
The rose filling neutralises the oiliness of the pastry, and the pastry absorbs the sweetness of the flower filling. Everything makes for a perfect combination.
Sticky Rice Balls with Soybean Flour (Doumian Tangyuan)
Doumian Tangyuan have always held an unshakable position in Kunming desserts. The Kunming people think that Tangyuan will lose its soft taste as soon as it is frozen. So fresh hand make Tangyuan is the soul of delicious Doumian Tangyuan.
Eight Delicacies Rice Pudding (Babaofan)
Babaofan is not only common in the streets, but also an important feast for the Kunming people. Babaofan is Beijing cuisine but it was introduced to Kunming as early as the Ming Dynasty.
Traditional eight delicacies ingredients include glutinous rice, red bean paste, red dates, lotus seeds, raisins, walnut kernels, sunflower seeds and goji berry. Nowadays the Babaofan has more abundant ingredients and more varieties than in the past. It is more suitable for appearing on a formal dining table.
As time passes, Babaofan still has an important place in local cuisine. No matter how many dishes are served at the banquet, people will choose Babaofan as the last one.
Yunnan
Yunnan
