Chinese New Year Goodies

Pineapple tarts, love letters, kueh bangkit, kueh lapis, kok chai, and all sort of cookies – these are the usual CNY goodies you buy to eat and serve your guests. Imagine eating these at every place you visit and then at home and at the office – enough is enough even though this is just a yearly affair.

I started to buy less and less of these goodies each year because I don’t want to end up having so much of them left. I remembered one year I have four different types of pineapple tarts and three different types of love letters – some were bought by me whilst the others were given to me. It is usual for relatives and friends to give each other these goodies. When you visit each other you see the same kind of goodies and chances are you won’t be eating them as you have them at home or you are expecting more of these at other places you will be visiting.

Two years ago I decided to serve my guests non-traditional Chinese New Year goodies instead. Now I serve them chocolates, cakes and ice cream.


This year I have baton marechaux, raspberry snowball, and varieties of chocolates. I had bought different ice creams the last two years. This year I made orange sorbet and served them.

It is a challenge to come up with very good, a bit not so common and appropriate cake to serve each year. Appropriate because you don’t want the cake to be too heavy as your guests probably already had a fair share of the usual goodies and may be expecting more at the next home.

Hopefully this will make visiting my place less of a routine and more of expectation.