Black Sesame Dessert

This is a popular Chinese or East-Asian dessert available in China, Taiwan and Singapore. Usually served hot, you can also have this cold for the summer nights.

Black sesame is packed with nutritional benefits such as polyunsaturated fats, omega 6s, iron and calcium. Our mum’s believe that having black sesame is a natural remedy for grey hair (don’t know if that’s true!).

This recipe is extremely easy and quick (minus the soaking time) and not thickened with cornstarch. If you have bitter almonds, use that but otherwise feel free to try walnuts instead of almonds, or you can add them in addition as well.

Sprinkle with some more sesame seeds or if you have sticky rice balls – add them in!

Black Sesame Soup “Hak Zi Ma Wu” 黑芝麻糊

Prep Time

5 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

Soaking time

1 d

Total Time

10 mins

Serving Size

5

Ingredients

1 cup rice soaked overnight

1/4 cup almonds soaked overnight

100 g toasted black sesame

100 g roasted peanuts

1/2 cup water

3.5 cups water for the pot

1/2 cup brown sugar

Instructions

Place 1 cup of water, rice, almonds, black sesame and peanuts in your blender and blitz until fully blended. If this mixture is too thick, add a little bit of water so it is of a pour-able consistency.

In your pot/saucepan add 3.5 cups of water to a boil and add 1/2 of brown sugar. Mix to dissolve.

Take your black sesame mixture and slowly pour into your pot while stirring. Over the next few minutes it should start to thicken and bubble. Once thickened, it is ready to serve.

You see these beautiful crispy sesame balls at yum cha and you wonder…. How do I make these?

It’s actually a LOT easier than you think and really doesn’t require many ingredients.

We used to have these quite a lot growing up, usually with red bean paste.

You don’t need to have the baking soda/baking powder in the recipe, but it does help keep it’s round shape. We’ve made this without baking soda and with cold water, it wasn’t the best way as it deflated and generally felt quite tough.

So hot water and baking soda will promise you CRISP and DELICIOUS sesame balls.