Before and afters

The warmer weather has brought durians to fruit vendors, supermarket aisles and dessert shops across town. The spiky fruit is served in many ways, including with shaved ice, in a pudding (similar to panna cotta) and in cr?pes filled with whipped cream. But for those yet to acquire a taste for the pungent fruit, there are many other sweet things on offer.

New outlets with fresh takes on the classics are drawing in as many pudding lovers as older establishments touting more traditional desserts.

Five Guys Desserts burst onto the already-crowded dessert scene in 2009 with Taiwanese shaved ice. Machines glide across large blocks of flavoured ice, shaving long, sweet slices, a far cry from the old-style gnarly pebbles of flavourless ice topped with syrup. Five Guys, like rivals Honeymoon Dessert and Lucky Dessert, has grown rapidly into a chain of 14 outlets in Hong Kong.

'About 15 years ago, younger people were interested only in Western desserts, such as cake and ice cream,' says dessert lover Cathy Chan Kit-lam, a mother of two. 'Tong shui po [sweet soup eateries] were for the older generation.'

Traditionally, Cantonese desserts consist mainly of sweet soups, that can be herbal, often taking longer to make, or made up of ingredients that are easy to get a hold of, such as mung beans or eggs. As with all foods, the Cantonese always consider the effect of the ingredients on the body, whether the effects are medicinal or otherwise. For example, a classic quick dessert of dried tofu skins, eggs and rock sugar, is commonly eaten after barbecues as it is thought to be able to cool down internal heat.

The most common sugars used in these are rock sugar and slabs of compressed brown sugar, although honey and the natural sweetness of ingredients such as dried dates are also employed, and they tend to be less sweet than Western desserts, especially those which rely on sugar for the physical structure of the result, such as zabaglione or sponge cakes.

Five Guys sells an egg pudding that is steamed inside egg shells. Serving slightly more expensive desserts than its competitors, it aims to excite diners with new ideas. 'We were inspired by a savoury Chinese dish, which has egg steamed with mushrooms inside eggshells,' says Antony Wong Kar-wah, one of the five founders of Five Guys Desserts.