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Constellation Inspiration

Constellation Inspiration

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Taro Coconut Sago Dessert Soup (椰汁芋頭+芋圓西米露)

Happy Lantern Festival! Lantern Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the first Chinese lunar month and it marks the end of the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) period. Traditionally, people would go moon gazing and send up flying lanterns with friends and family. In addition to flying lanterns, one of the most exciting parts about the festival is eating tong yuen, or glutinous rice balls. These rice balls are filled with a sweet filling (typical black sesame paste) and served in a sweet ginger broth or a sweet fermented rice soup. My family usually serves the tong yuen in a brown sugar ‘soup’. Why glutinous rice balls? The name for these glutinous rice balls has a similar pronunciation to the word for ‘gathering of the family’, so it is believed that eating this dessert will bring family wholeness and togetherness in the new year. Chinese New Year is all about eating auspicious foods that have names similar to themes of family, happiness, and prosperity.

Instead of serving traditional sesame-filled glutinous rice balls this year, I am adding homemade taro and yam ‘balls’ into one of my favourite traditional Chinese dessert soups, taro and sago pearls in coconut milk. I used my recipe for taro and yam balls, but instead of shaping them into spheres, a rolled them out with a rolling pin, and punched out heart and star shapes with cookie cutters. Because family is such an important theme during Chinese New Year, serving heart-shaped tong yuen is extra meaningful to me.

This recipe for taro coconut sago dessert soup should be “recipe” in quotations. I use quotations because my parents never used a recipe for their version (it is all about taste as you go!) and Chinese dessert soup gives you a lot of freedom when it comes to sweetness level and types and amount of toppings. I listed my suggestions for how sweet I like my dessert soups (which is on the lower side) and how much topping I like in them (higher than usual). If you like to have more taro root in your dessert soup, add more! If you don’t like grass jelly, add more sago pearls instead! If you don’t want to make your own taro balls, use store bought! Chinese New Year is all about abundance and you can add as much toppings as you like. To those that celebrate Chinese and Lunar New Year, I hope you had a wonderful and safe celebration this year and may Year of the Ox bring you and your loved ones so much happiness.

Taro Coconut Sago Dessert Soup (椰汁芋頭+芋圓西米露)

This creamy coconut milk-based "soup" has many treasures in it: cubes of taro, sweet potato, and purple yams, homemade taro and yam balls (tong yuen), sago pearls, and grass jelly. One of my favourite things about Chinese dessert soups is that you can add any toppings you like — these are some my favourites!
Makes 6
By Amy

Ingredients

Coconut Milk Base

  • 1 1/2 cup (355ml) coconut milk
  • 1 1/2 cup (355ml) whole milk
  • 1/3 cup (67g) granulated sugar, more if you like it sweeter

Toppings (*these are just suggestions!)

  • 1 1/4 cup (160g) taro root, purple yam, or sweet potato (or mixture), peeled, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, steamed
  • 1 cup homemade or store-bought yam and taro balls, cooked
  • 1 cup (~half can) grass jelly, cut into cubes
  • 3/4 cup sago pearls, cooked

Instructions

Coconut Milk Base

  • In a medium pot over medium heat, combine coconut milk, milk, and sugar.
  • Bring mixture to a boil and remove from heat. Set side.

Toppings

  • Peel taro root, purple yam, and sweet potatoes. Dice into small 1/2-inch cubes. Steam under tender and a fork or toothpick pricks through, about 10 – 15 minutes. Set aside.
  • In a small pot, cook store-bought or homemade taro and yam balls (I have a recipe for homemade ones here!). Set aside.
  • In a small pot, cook sago pearls according to instructions on the package. Set aside.

Assembly

  • Add all the prepared toppings to the coconut milk base. Stir to combine.
  • When ready to serve, add the cubed grass jelly.
  • The dessert soup can be served hot or cold. If you want to serve the dessert soup cold, I recommend transferring the dessert soup into a container and chilling in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

Notes

The best thing about Chinese dessert soup is that you can add whatever and however much ingredients you like! Traditionally, this dessert soup just has taro cubes and sago pearls, but I like adding homemade taro and yam balls and grass jelly for additional flavour and texture.
You can find the recipe for my homemade taro and yam balls here. Instead of rolling the dough into balls, I rolled out the dough with a rolling pin and stamped out the shapes with small cookie cutters. I halved the recipe for this dessert soup. If you have any leftover uncooked taro and yam balls, they can be frozen for later use.
It is important that you cook all the toppings separately, and not in the coconut milk mixture. Each topping has its own cook time and tends to release a lot of starch when cooking. If toppings are cooked in the coconut milk base, it will make the coconut milk very thick and sticky. 

Valentine’s Day Strawberry Lychee Mille Feuille

This mille feuille is everything I want it to be. Between the layers of puff pastry is vanilla pastry cream, whipped strawberry ganache, and fresh lychee fruit. It is inspired by the Isaphan croissant my mom and I enjoyed on the sunny day spent at Jardin du Luxembourg.

Lunar New Year Cookie Box

This Lunar New Year cookie box is inspired by a ‘Chinese New Year Tray of Togetherness’ (全盒), a goodie box imbued with symbolism. For my cookie 全盒 this year, I made different cookies with flavours I’ve enjoyed growing up: black sesame wreaths, black sesame linzers, shortbread oranges, as well as kinako cookies

Osmanthus Flower Jelly (桂花糕)

A lightly sweetened osmanthus scented jelly studded with goji berries. It is a common dessert at dim sum (one of my favourites) and we’re making it in a koi fish-shaped mold for Chinese New Year!

Grilled Chewy Rice Cake (燒餅)

These rice cakes only have two Chinese characters for its description, 燒餅, and the best translation for it would be ‘grilled rice cake.’ What the simplicity of the name doesn’t tell you unfortunately is what truly makes these grilled rice cakes so special – it uses glutinous rice flour instead of regular rice flour, which produces a mochi-like texture. Grilling or frying these mochi-like cakes give them an extra layer of flavour and texture compared to traditional steamed mochi.

Party Animals Confetti Cake Decorating Tutorials

When I was in graduate school completing my master’s degree, I always leapt at the opportunity to attend research conferences in different cities and countries. Each year, our research grants covered at least one trip to present at…

Gingerbread Cookie Garland

After I made my gingerbread house this year, I had some gingerbread dough leftover. The recipe I used for the gingerbread house comes from Food52 is meant for building structures — it’s sturdier, doesn’t spread as much as traditional gingerbread recipes,…

Gingerbread Greenhouse 2020

Thank you, thank you, thank you x a million for all the gingerbread house love this month. When I made my first gingerbread house/greenhouse last year, I didn’t expect so many readers to actually make their own greenhouse this year! You…

Coconut Snow Globe Cupcakes

I don’t know about you, but holiday baking is still in full swing in my kitchen and I don’t expect it to stop until 11:59pm on December 25th. This month, I have kept my holiday cookie cutters out…

Pretzel Shortbread: 3 Ways

I’ve never really liked pretzels. I like those little pretzel nubs covered in cheesy dust and the pretzels filled with peanut butter but real pretzels? I’ll pass. I don’t like them even if they’re the only snack offered…

Sweet & Petite Gingerbread Houses (with Wilton!)

It’s my favourite time of the year! Gingerbread house decorating time! Please note I said gingerbread house decorating and not baking because the baking part is just a necessary evil for us to get to the happy place…

Halloween Brown Sugar Breakfast Tarts

I think there are two groups of Halloween people – those who like the actual horror aspect of the holiday and will embark on scary-movie-marathons and voluntarily venture inside a haunted house and those who like the idea…

Apple Puff Pastry Rose Tarts

I met Kelsey almost five years ago when we bonded online over rustic cakes and lattice pie tops. We bonded so much online that I invited a stranger into my apartment for a baking and sleepover date. Surprisingly, Kelsey…

My Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies

I refrained from naming this recipe ‘the best chocolate chip cookie’ or some other title containing a superlative because there are so many amazing chocolate chip/chunk cookies out there and each one is special in its own way….

Marbelous Cookie (aka. Triple Chocolate Cookie)

I really loved attending the University of British Columbia. I loved most of my professors and courses I chose, I loved the campus itself, and I loved all the wonderful people I met. Most importantly, I loved Blue…

The Ultimate Shaker Cookie Tutorial

Every time I post a shaker cookie video, I always get quite a few comments and DMs asking me if I could do a full tutorial on how to create these sprinkle-filled cookies. I actually have shared two…

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i just saw my first cherry blossoms of the season! i just saw my first cherry blossoms of the season!! so i’m going to start making 🍡🍡🍡 now!! brb!!

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#bakefromscratch #feedfeed #f52grams #huffposttaste #bhgfood #thebakefeed #foodwinewomen #foodblogfeed #foodandwine #eattheworld #bombesquad #abmlifeissweet #marthabakes #saveurmag #bakersofinstagram #imsomartha #kitchenbowl #wsbakeclub #kawaiifood #cutefood #mochi #homecafe #dishedvan #yvreats #vancouverfoodie #wagashi #japanesedessert #dango #hanami
✨🏮 lantern festival 🏮✨ marks the last da ✨🏮 lantern festival 🏮✨ marks the last day of chinese new year and one of the best parts about the festival is eating tong yuen (glutinous rice balls). instead of serving traditional sesame-filled glutinous rice balls this year, i am adding homemade taro and yam glutinous rice balls into one of my favourite traditional chinese dessert soups, 芋頭西米露 (taro and sago pearls in coconut milk). i shaped my taro and yam glutinous rice ball dough into hearts and stars because family is an important theme during chinese new year and serving heart-shaped tong yuen to my family is extra meaningful to me. to those that celebrate chinese and lunar new year, i hope you had a wonderful and safe celebration this year and may year of the ox bring you and your loved ones so much happiness. recipe is on the blog — link in the biooooo!

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#bakefromscratch #baking #feedfeed #f52grams #huffposttaste #bhgfood #thebakefeed #foodwinewomen #beautifulcuisines #foodblogfeed #foodandwine #eattheworld #hautecuisine #bombesquad #abmlifeissweet #marthabakes #saveurmag #bakersofinstagram #imsomartha #kitchenbowl #bareaders #wsbakeclub #kawaiifood #williamssonoma #chinesenewyear #cny #lunarnewyear #mochi #糖水
red bean cream! matcha cream! pandan jelly! choux! red bean cream! matcha cream! pandan jelly! choux!

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#bakefromscratch #baking #feedfeed #f52grams #huffposttaste #bhgfood #thebakefeed #foodwinewomen #beautifulcuisines #foodblogfeed #foodandwine #eattheworld #bombesquad #abmlifeissweet #marthabakes #saveurmag #bakersofinstagram #kitchenbowl #bareaders #bonappetitmag #kawaiifood #creampuff #creampuffs #choux #boba #bubbletea #bubbletealover #matchalover #matchagreentea
fruit sandos ftw !! 🍓🍊🥝🍑🍈 ⠀ ⠀ fruit sandos ftw !! 🍓🍊🥝🍑🍈

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#bakefromscratch #baking #feedfeed #f52grams #huffposttaste #bhgfood #thebakefeed #foodwinewomen #beautifulcuisines #foodblogfeed #foodandwine #eattheworld #bombesquad #abmlifeissweet #marthabakes #saveurmag #bakersofinstagram #imsomartha #kitchenbowl #bareaders #wsbakeclub #kawaiifood  #fruitsandwich #homecafe #cutefood #japanesedessert #milkbread #fruitsando
last weekend, i ordered the most beautiful wagashi last weekend, i ordered the most beautiful wagashi set from @yuwa_japanese and it was so perfect. it was my first time having wagashi like this and i can’t wait to learn more about the art of wagashi making. the designs and flavours of these pieces were inspired by the blossoming of spring and to celebrate true love ✨

~tsubaki mochi (camilla flower): domyoji flour mochi with smooth red bean paste
~yaezaki (petal of late-bloom camellia): traditional japanese steamed cake with white wine jelly with sweet white bean paste
~kogiku (mini chrysanthemum): nerikiri with almond, chocolate azuki red bean smooth an paste
~hakubai (white plum flower): japanese sponge cake with sour plum and red bean paste + pink white an jelly
~shita moe (plant sprout emerging from the soil):
nerikiri with matcha green tea an bean paste
~uguisu (nightingale): yomogi green mochi with red bean paste and walnuts

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#bakefromscratch #feedfeed #f52grams #huffposttaste #bhgfood #thebakefeed #foodwinewomen #foodblogfeed #foodandwine #eattheworld #bombesquad #abmlifeissweet #marthabakes #saveurmag #bakersofinstagram #imsomartha #kitchenbowl #wsbakeclub #kawaiifood #cutefood #mochi #homecafe #dishedvan #yvreats #vancouverfoodie #wagashi #japanesedessert

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