Dessert soups to warm your soul

As the weather gets cooler, what can be more comforting than snuggling into your sheets with a cup of hot cocoa in your hands? But sometimes I need something more.

During the winter months, I am always struggling to stay warm at night because I don't want to turn on the heat, which makes my skin super-dry. When wearing multiple layers or drinking hot tea doesn't help, there's one last resort: Chinese dessert soups, served warm of course.

They work because they are more substantial than beverages. They contain chewy or chunky ingredients, or are thicker in texture. I think they are the perfect sweet before bed. Although they are filling, they won't leave you feeling stuffed the same way cakes or pastries do. But people also enjoy them during dim-sum lunches or throughout the day.

Like all soups, dessert soups can take a long time to prepare from scratch. But after making so many Western desserts, I felt it's time for me to tackle something uniquely Chinese like this.

Based on what I found in the farmers' market and Oakland's Chinatown, I ended up with two dessert soups common in Cantonese cooking: taro and yam soup with glutinous rice dumplings and black sesame soup.

 Taro and yam soup with glutinous rice dumplings

Both were easy to prepare: no more than 30 minutes from start to finish. I cooked peeled chunks of taro and yam in boiling water with a piece of ginger until the vegetables were soft, then sweetened the soup with Chinese rock sugar. I made the dumplings by mixing glutinous rice flour and water, divided and rolled the dough into balls, then cooked them in the soup.

For the sesame soup, I stirred pre-ground black sesame seeds into boiling water and thickened the mixture with glutinous rice flour. I used agave nectar to sweeten the soup.

Black sesame soup

I used minimal amounts of sugar in the soups to give them just a hint of sweetness. The taro and yam tasted sweet naturally, and I didn't want the sweetness to mask the nutty flavor of the black sesame seeds.

Seriously, these hearty soups warmed my soul from the inside out, and I was good for the night. Bonus point: unlike most desserts, they at least have some nutritional value. Now if I had a food processor or mortar and pestle, I could experiment with other dessert soup classics such as ground peanut and almond soups. Time to add this to my Christmas wish-list...