I say ‘sweets’ instead of ‘desserts’, as the concept of dessert doesn’t really exist in Southeast Asian culture. A meal often ends with a fat wedge of watermelon or some slices of pineapple. That doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy our sweets – we love our sweets. But sweets are generally eaten as snacks in between meals, or any time of the day really.

The recipes in this chapter are only a snippet of the crazy variety we have in Southeast Asia. Unlike Western desserts, which rely mostly on a handful of standard base ingredients like flour, eggs, butter and milk, Asian sweets can be made from all manner of ingredients. Just flour alone can come not just from wheat, but from rice, bean, corn and tapioca.

A mixture of these flours will be stirred with water or coconut milk to form a batter, sweetened with palm sugar, then steamed or boiled to form little dumplings (see ondeh ondeh, here, and peanut tang yuan, here). It is also not uncommon to see rice still in its grain form – either combined with sweet fruit and finished with a drizzle of coconut cream (see peach on sticky rice, here), or stuffed with sweet bean pastes and wrapped inside banana leaves.

Another thing to note is that it is pretty much summer the whole year round in most of Southeast Asia, so cold desserts are very much loved. As a child, one of my favourite sounds was the tinkling of the ice cream man’s bell as he wandered through my neighbourhood. He didn’t drive a colourful noisy Mister Softee van; he only had a small pushcart, but the little mobile fridge was all that he needed. We didn’t get Cornettos and Calippo ice lollies; rather, there were durian-flavoured coconut popsicles (potong ice cream, see sweetcorn & coconut popsicles, here) and ice cream sandwiches made on the spot.

The balmy weather also means there’s an abundance of tropical fruit throughout the year. Fruits and vegetables are often used to naturally flavour the dishes; and really, you don’t need much else when you have fruits that are ripe and in season. Bananas could simply be dipped in batter and deep-fried (see goreng pisang, here), and avocado blended into a shake with dark palm sugar (see avocado shake, here). The recipes here are far from strict; keeping in line with the whole Asian concept of using what’s local and fresh, I’ve given British options for each season.