Masterclasses

Not many people associate Chinese food with sweets, buns and desserts, but actually I'm at a local bakery where they do some fantastic pastries and cakes. So come with me!

This bakery has been here for over forty years and it's family run, really traditional. Here are some of my favourite cakes, buns and pastries.

[Speaks to shopkeeper]. She's saying that their speciality in this bakery is the fried doughs, or fried buns, or fried bread. So she's given me a fried dough stick called 'you-tiow', which is traditionally eaten for breakfast, dunked in a bit of hot soya milk. It's really crunchy on the outside.

This is a red bean paste bun. This is a red bean filling made from the adzuki red bean and then sweetened with some sugar and sometimes some honey.

And this is an almond bun, so it's almond and butter-encrusted. And the main difference between all these pastries is really in the filling and how it's made, so from red bean paste to lotus bean paste, to water chestnut paste, to almond paste, to coconut paste... these are all delicious. And the only way to really experience it is to come and just try it.

Now, a really naughty one is this, this is called 'zi ma chio', sesame ball. It's made from glutinous rice and it's deep-fried and coated in sesame seeds. It's really naughty, sometimes it has a filling of red bean paste. Sometimes when I'm at home and I make it, I love putting in bits of dark chocolate, so when it deep fries it just melts and oozes everywhere. It's fantastic.

This is the real naughty stuff here, more naughty stuff, this is all deep-fried. We've got here a sugar-coated one, a little bit like a doughnut. This is a Chinese doughnut, and these are just sweetened dough.

I'm going to try one of these, this is also another favourite. It's a sweet bun with coconut cream, oh butter cream, fantastic! And it's just covered with desiccated coconut. Mmm!

So now I'm going to take a selection with me. [Orders a selection of pastries].

If you're thinking: 'What's the difference between a Chinese doughnut and a Western doughnut?', well it's in the making and it's the use of different doughs. So, for example, we have doughs made from glutinous rice flour, all the way to a basic yeast dough, to wheat starchy doughs. It's really in the use of flour and how you make it.

[To shopkeeper] Thank you!

I hope I've shown you that Chinese food is not just about savoury, it's very much about sweet too. So just unleash, be naughty, go wild, just treat yourself to a few pastries and buns!

[To shopkeeper] Bye!