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Who’s up for a bowl of Bubur Cha Cha (摩摩查查)? Bubur Cha Cha is a popular sweet dessert originated from Nyonya cuisine. It is also known as Sweet Potato And Yam Dessert. The dessert typically uses varieties of sweet potatoes (yellow, orange, purple), taro/yam, colorful tapioca jelly/sago pearls with palm sugar cooked in thick coconut milk dessert. Sometimes you can even add beans like black-eyed beans, red beans and green beans. To make the dessert more colorful, you can also make different colors of tapioca jellies to go with it.

Bubur Cha Cha is a sweet, delightful, colorful yet fulfilling dessert that you cannot resist. You can always serve it hot or put in some ice to get an icy cold Bubur Cha Cha. This is actually very similar to Hong Kong recipe of sweet sago in coconut milk (西米露). Great to serve in any occasions.

Ingredients:

2 small Orange Sweet Potatoes (diced)
1 small Yellow Sweet Potatoes (diced)
2 small Japanese Purple Yam (diced)
1 lb Taro (diced)
3 Tbsp Sago Pearls
1 can Coconut Milk
4 Pandan Leaves  (tied in knot)
2 pieces Palm Sugar (based on sweetness desired)

Cooking Method:

1. Cut the potatoes into dices, steam the sweet potato and yam dices on a high heat for about 20 minutes, or until cooked and tender soft.
2. In a pot, fill in half a pot of water , add in Pandan leaves and bring to boil. Combine coconut milk, bring to boil and turn heat to low.
3. In another small pot, bring water to boil, add Sago pearls and cook for about 5-10 minutes until Sago turned translucent. Drain and rinse under cold water. Set aside for serving.
4. Add in the cooked sweet potato and yam dices into the coconut mixture pot, add palm sugar keep stirring until dissolve. Simmer for another 5-10 minutes. Make sure the potatoes are cooked nicely, not too hard yet not too mushy.
5. Serve in a small bowl, add in cooked sago pearls and mix well. Can be served cold with ice too.

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Eating Chinese New Year’s cake or year cake (年糕) is believed to have a symbolism of rising higher or taller in each coming year, such as getting a raise in job, promotion in income, or simply just growing taller for kids. I was told so during my childhood. In Chinese, Nian (粘) means sticky which is identical in sound as year (年) while gao (糕) means cake which is identical in sound as high (高). Thus it is dubbed as year cake.

Back in Malaysia, the sweet year cake is usually what we have during the Chinese New Year. Steaming and deep-frying are two common eating methods. I remember when I was in Malaysia, my mom preferred to steam the sweet year cake until it dissolved to become sticky and then it was served with the fresh grinded coconut meats. It was delicious! For the deep fried sweet year cake, it is normally sold by the Chinese doughnut hawkers together with other fried breads like Chinese fried bread stick (油條) and sugar cake (糖糕).

Being in the United States more than seven years, I didn’t have this delectable food. I was grateful when Sam brought two of these big sweet year cakes from Malaysia two weeks ago. Actually Sam was requested by my mom to carry them over for me. Although there are sweet year cakes selling in the Asian market for the coming Chinese New Year, these are homemade by my mom from Malaysia. So, I’ve utilized them for making the deep fried sweet year cake.

Ingredients:
1 sweet year cake (sliced 0.3-inch)
1 yam / taro (peeled and sliced 0.3-inch)
2 sweet potatoes (peeled and sliced 0.3-inch)
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup water

Note: the true measure of ingredients may vary by depending on the quantity you want to make.

Cooking method:

1. Combine egg, rice flour, all purpose flour, salt, baking powder and water in a bowl. Whisk them until become smooth batter. Note: Make sure the batter is not too thick and not too watery.
2. Heat up the pot or deep fryer with enough oil.
3. Place one piece of sweet year cake between the sweet potato and yam. Try to put a little batter in between to make them stick together.
4. Coat them evenly with the batter.
5. Deep fry them with low / medium heat until golden brown.
6. Drain on paper towel before serve.

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Weather in LA is getting colder and colder especially last week because of the storm. Towards the end of the week  everyday was raining. It was really troublesome getting around when raining; the roads were wet, the traffic was slow, the sky was dark and the weather was cold. It felt so slow and moody. The best thing for me to do was relaxing at home with my blanket covering up, sitting in front of the TV with my favorite dramas and a bowl of hot Yam Soup Dessert in hand. Having a hot bowl of dessert gave me the perfect warm up for my body as well as fulfilling my crave for sweet dessert.

The Yam Soup Dessert is pretty easy and simple to make, you just have to dice up all the ingredients and cook them in the ginger soup. It can be ready in one hour. Mmmm… It tastes so delicious and definitely keeps us all warm up in this cold weather.

Ingredients:
2 Sweet Potatoes (Diced)
2 Yam (Diced)
2 Purple Yam (Diced)
2 Pandan Leaves (Tie into a knot)
3 Rock Sugar (depends on your sweetness preferences)
1/2 Ginger (Sliced)
15 Quart Water

Serve size: 4-5 people

Cooking Method:

1. Boil the water in a pot.
2. Put the sliced ginger and pandan leaves into water, cook for 5 minutes.
3. Put the diced sweet potatoes & yam, bring to boil.
4. Simmer on low for additional 50 minutes.
5. Add the rock sugar based on your preference on sweetness, cook until sugar is dissolved fully.
6. Stir to mix and ready to eat.

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Apparently when I made the Sweet Potato Pie with Marshmallow Meringue, I have some of the sweet potato fillings remained. It would be a big waste to throw it away. So I’ve turned the fillings into a new sweet potato dessert in a smaller portion, which is a pretty nice size for individual serving.

The main thing for this recipe is the crusted pecan streusel toppings. I like it the way it is prepared because the toppings will create a golden brown sugary crust topping to complement the creamy sweet potato fillings. You can use this recipe for any kind of pie toppings as well, just substitute with other nuts or add some spices if preferred.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of Sweet Potato Fillings (see recipe Sweet Potato Pie with Marshmallow Meringue recipe)

For the crusted pecan toppings:
1/2 cup pecans (chopped)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 stick butter (firmed)
1/4 cup light brown sugar

Serve size: 4 people

Cooking Method:

1. Scoop the sweet potato fillings into custard cups or 6 oz ramekins.
2. Combine the flour and brown sugar, cut butter into pieces and add into flour mixture, mix until crumble. Add the chopped pecans, mix well.
3. Sprinkle the pecan toppings over the top of sweet potato fillings.
4. Bake at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes until the toppings are golden brown and crusted.

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I always make one of my favorite and easy desserts which is the sweet potato pie with marshmallows for Thanksgiving dinner. I personally like the natural sweetness in the sweet potato which makes it a decent dessert.  You can always bake them in the oven and eat it as is, with no extra sugar added. Usually if we are barbecuing, I will wrap up a couple of sweet potatoes in foil and bake them in the hot charcoal. The sweet potatoes will be ready in an hour. Then you can just peel the skin and eat it right away. That feels soooo good when you have a hot fresh sweet potato especially in the cold weather to warm up your cold hands and stomach.

For the past Thanksgivings celebration I had made a simple dessert of baked sweet potato topped with marshmallows, this time I’ve made a real pie deal ”Sweet Potato Pie with Marshmallow Meringue”. Go to below to check out the recipe.

If you don’t want to go through too much trouble making a pie, here I will offer another simple method.  Peel and cut the sweet potatoes into 1/2 inch pieces, lay them in a baking dish for about 2 – 3 layers.  Bake them directly in the oven about 1 hour to be cooked. This way the sweet potato will still remain in its texture, I actually like this better so it doesn’t feel too soft. If you like the sweet potato to be smooth just blend the cooked potatoes with sugar and milk into puree. Before serving, place the big marshmallow cubes on top of the sweet potatoes fillings and bake them at 400°F degrees for 5 minutes until the marshmallow turn golden brown.

For the Sweet Potato Pie with Marshmallow Meringue Pie, follow the recipe below:

Ingredients:
1 ready-to-bake pie dough

For the sweet potato filling:
1 1/2 lbs sweet potato
2 tbsp brown sugar (depends on sweetness preferred)
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp cinnamon, nutmeg (based on preference)

For the meringue:
3 large egg whites (thaw at room temperature)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
5 tbsp confectioner sugar
12 big marshmallows+ 1 tbsp milk (microwave 30 seconds, stir to mix well into cream)

Preparation:
To make the crust:

1. Unfold the ready-to-bake pie dough, lightly flour on both sides of dough and the 9″ pie pan. Place pie dough on to the pie pan.
2. Tuck the excess dough under for a thicker edge, crimp the edge with patterns.
3. Pierce holes with fork on the side and bottom of the crust.
4. Bake accordingly to the package, 425°F  for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool down.

To make the filling:

1. Place the sweet potatoes on baking pan and bake in oven at 350°F  for 1 hour or until tender. You can do this ahead of time.
2. Remove sweet potatoes from oven, cut in half and scoop out the potatoes fillings into a mixing bowl.
3. Add in sugar, milk, cinnamon or nutmeg, mix in blender or whisk until well blend and smooth. Pour the fillings into the baked pie crust.

To make the Marshmallow Meringue:

1. Combine marshmallows and milk in a large bowl, microwave for 30 seconds and mix until creamy and smooth.
2. In another metal bowl,  use mixer to beat egg whites at low speed until foamy. Add in cream of tartar and 2 tbsp sugar, continue to whisk.  Then add 1 tbsp of sugar at a time whisk until the egg whites reach stiff peak and glossy.
3. Divide egg whites into 3  by adding 1/3 at a time into the marshmallow cream. Fold with spatula until egg whites incorporated with marshmallow cream.
4. Spread marshmallow meringue on top of sweet patoto,  swirl with edge of metal spatula to create peaks.
5. Bake at 400°F for 5 -10 minutes until the peaks of meringue turn golden brown.
6. Let stand at room temperature until meringue is cool. Chill in the fridge.

Our Ultimate Thanksgiving Feast. Don’t forget to check out other Thanksgiving receipes such as the Rosemary Roasted Turkey with Stuffing and Mushroom Gravy,  Sweet Potato Pie with Marhsmallow Meringue and Green Bean Casserole.