27 Malaysian Desserts That Steal Your Heart

Perhaps you are used to western-style desserts, but what about Malaysian desserts? You must be very curious.

As a multi-ethnic country located in Southeast Asia, Malaysia has a rich and diverse range of foods by blending and mixing many countries’ cuisine flavors. Its desserts are also very diverse, with unique processing techniques. What are you waiting for? Discover it right now.

List Of Typical Malaysian Desserts You Should Not Miss

There are many different types of Malaysian desserts. To have an overview, I will divide it into three main types that are sweet soup, steamed desserts, fried and baked desserts. Here is the specific list:

Malaysian Sweet Soup:

1. Tang Yuan
2. Pulut Hitam
3. Red Bean Soup
4. Sweet Potato and Ginger Soup
5. Bubur Cha Cha
6. Leng Chee Kang
7. Cendol
8. Bubur Kacang Hijau

Malaysian Steamed Dessert:

9. Pulut Inti
10. Pulut Tai Tai
11. Huat Kueh
12. Kuih Seri Muka
13. Kuih Talam
14. Kuih Lapis
15. Ang Ku Kueh
16. Laddu
17. Ondeh Ondeh

Malaysian Fried And Baked Desserts:

18. Banana Fritters
19. Jangri
20. Kek Lapis Sarawak
21. Kueh Bahulu
22. Kuih Bakar Pandan
23. Kuih Ketayap
24. Kuih Bingka Ubi
25. Kuih Ros
26. Apam Balik
27. Gulab Jamun

Malaysian Sweet Soups For Sweet Moments

Sweet soup is a typical sweet treat in Asia. There are many different types of sweet soup. Let’s find out which sweet soups are popular as a dessert in Malaysia.

1. Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Balls)

This sweet soup is a traditional sweet often appearing during the Lunar New Year holiday. Overall, this dessert is sticky rice balls wrapping sweet filling inside.

Initially, people used to use ground peanuts and coconut for the filling. But later, this type of tea was created with many different types of fillings. You can make a new type of filling depending on your tastes.

2. Pulut Hitam (Black Glutinous Rice With Coconut Milk)

Pulut Hitam is a very popular dessert in Southeast Asian countries. The main ingredient of this dessert is black glutinous rice, which gives the dish its mysterious color.

The indispensable highlight in this dessert is coconut milk. This is the factor that creates the fatness and harmony of this sweet soup.

Unlike the liquid texture of other sweet soups, Pulut Hitam is usually cooked more densely. And the ingredient that makes up the sweetness is sugar, which is made with jaggery.

3. Red Bean Soup

As the name suggests, the highlight of this dessert is red beans. In addition, you can also add other ingredients such as ginkgo seeds, barley if you like.

With this dessert, you can eat it hot or cold. But for me personally, after I finish cooking this sweet in my instant pot, I will let it cool for a while. After that, I will add crushed ice to create an extremely delicious cool dessert.

You can see this video to know more:

4. Sweet Potato And Ginger Soup

There are many ways to make this dessert. You can cut sweet potatoes into cubes or mash them up to heat them evenly.

For sweet potatoes, there are a great variety of sweet potatoes. But here, I’ll only mention two types: purple and yellow ones. As I often see, in this dish, people often use yellow sweet potatoes more. Of course, you can also use purple sweet potatoes if you like.

A little sliced ginger will create a warm spicy taste along with brown sugar to create a rich sweetness. All these elements make a perfect dessert for dinner.

5. Bubur Cha Cha (Coconut Milk Dessert)

Bubur Cha Cha is a very common Malaysian local dessert. This dish will take you a lot of time to make because it includes a lot of different ingredients and goes through many steps to complete.

But most basically, the two main ingredients are still taro and sweet potato. If you’re not a fan of sweet potato or taro’s noticeable flavors, you can add sago, tapioca, yam, black-eyed peas, and bananas. Banana slices are the main highlight of this dish, creating a naturally sweet and nutty flavor.

6. Leng Chee Kang (Sweet Lotus Seed Soup)

Leng Chee Kang is a sweet soup with lotus seeds and other dried fruits from Malaysia, such as persimmon, tuberose, longan, and buckwheat seeds.

The special feature of this dish is its cool sweetness and cooling properties. This dish is usually eaten with ice to enjoy the flavor fully.

You can be creative by adding new ingredients to this dish but still ensure the inherent flavor of this dessert—for example, jelly, basil seeds, barley.

7. Cendol (Pandan Jelly Dessert)

Cendol is a sweet soup with a characteristic green color. The main ingredient of this dish is rice flour made green with pandan leaves. In addition to the coloring effect, pandan leaves also help this dish have a special aroma.

To make the dish tough, you can add a little tapioca flour into the recipe. As for the syrup, a mixture of jaggery and coconut milk will go perfectly with this dessert.

8. Bubur Kacang Hijau (Sweet Mung Bean Soup)

Bubur Kacang Hijau is a dessert that is quite similar to sweet red bean soup. The biggest difference is the raw material of green beans instead of red beans.

You can eat it as a liquid or as thick as you like; vary the amount of water to get the texture you want. You can even turn them into ice cream by pouring them into ice cream molds and placing them in the freezer. A little variation is already a cool ice cream for summer days. It’s interesting, isn’t it?

Delicious Boiled And Steamed Desserts In Malaysia

Steaming is a processing method that can almost keep the nutrients of food intact. Let’s see what delicious Malaysian dishes you can prepare with this specific method.

9. Pulut Inti (Glutinous Rice With Coconut Topping)

Pulut Inti is a traditional Malaysian dish with steamed glutinous rice and sweet coconut on top. This cake is wrapped with banana leaves in a pyramid shape.

You can use white glutinous rice or color it with butterfly pea flowers to make it more eye-catching.

10. Pulut Tai Tai (Blue Glutinous Rice Cake)

Pulut Tai Tai is a sticky rice dish cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaves for moisture and aroma. The alternating purple-blue color in this dish is from the butterfly pea flower extract.

After steaming, sticky rice will be compressed into the mold to shape. This dish is usually served with kaya cream jam.

Get how to make Pulut Tai Tai with very detailed steps, keep watching:

11. Huat Kueh (Steamed Rice Muffin)

This cake is made from rice flour mixed with pandan leaves. You can also choose different flavors such as chocolate, sweet potatoes, matcha depending on your favorite. In order for the cake to expand when steaming, it is necessary to leaven with baking powder. You can also use yeast to do this if you like.

When steamed, the cake will expand at the top, which Hokkien is called “Huat.” This is also the reason why this cake has such a unique name.

12. Kuih Seri Muka (Glutinous Rice With Pandan Custard)

Seri muka is a sweet cake consisting of two layers. One layer of which is steamed white sticky rice with coconut milk. The other layer is a smooth custard layer with the green color of pandan leaves.

Seri muka can be used as dessert, snack, or used in tea parties. This cake also often appears in street food stalls in Malaysia and is very popular with tourists.

13. Kuih Talam (Pandan Tray Cake)

KuihTalam is a traditional snack made from rice flour, chickpea flour, coconut milk, and other ingredients. Basically, this cake has two layers.

The top layer is white made from rice flour, and the salty creamy coconut sauce is white. The bottom layer is made from green bean paste.

You can also customize the bottom layer with your favorite flavor like yam, pineapple, brown sugar.

14. Kuih Lapis (Steamed Layer Cake)

In Malaysian, the name of this cake means “layered.” The more alternating layers of different colors, the more beautiful and attractive this cake will look.

The most common color of this cake is pink. But you can still create other colors you want by using food coloring or extracts of naturally colored plants.

The main ingredient in this cake is rice flour. However, if you can’t find rice flour, tapioca flour can also be used instead.

15. Ang Ku Kueh (Tortoise Cake)

Ang Ku Kueh is a sweet dessert also known as tortoise cake. This type of cake has an oval shape with a crust made from glutinous bean paste. When you come to Malaysia, you can see this cake with extremely diverse colors.

People use a lot of different natural ingredients to color the crust. But as for the filling, the most commonly used filling is mashed mung beans.

If you take this dessert with a cup of tea, you will feel its absolute deliciousness.

16. Laddu

In fact, this dish originated from India, was later introduced to Malaysia, and was loved by the people here.

This dessert consists of many circular tablets made from powder, nuts, and sugar. You can think of a lot of different materials to create your own taste for this dessert cake.

You don’t need any kitchen techniques for this dish because the formula is very simple.

17. Ondeh Ondeh (Pandan Balls With Coconut Sugar)

Onde-onde is one of the traditional desserts in Malaysia. This cake is made from dough with pineapple leaves and with sweet palm sugar ínside.

The dough is made from sweet potato powder or glutinous rice flour. If you use sticky rice flour, it can be mixed with pineapple leaf water to color.

After finishing the stage of making dough, you will boil them. Signs to recognize the dough is cooked enough is that they float on the water. At this point, just take them out, cover them with grated coconut, and serve.

Mouthwatering Fried And Baked Malaysian Desserts

It can be said that fried and baked cakes always bring a certain appeal of their own. Let’s see what Malaysian desserts you can make with this method.

18. Banana Fritters

This dish is usually found in Malaysian streets. The primary material is easy to find. It is ripe bananas. After frying, it will have a crunchy shell outside and soft sponge bananas inside. A perfect combination!

Although this way is very simple, you need to pay attention to the right choice of bananas to get the best taste. At the same time, it must pay attention to fire and frying time.

19. Jangri

This is a sugar syrup dipping dough dish made from urad dal. When you eat it, it melts in your mouth. With a special shape, this candy takes quite a bit of technique to complete.

For the best dish, you need to fry Jangri enough before putting it in the sugar syrup. And note to maintain a low fire level throughout the process.

20. Kek Lapis Sarawak (Sarawak Layer Cake)

Sarawak is a layered cake commonly served during traditional Malaysian holidays. To be called Sarawak, there must be at least two colors in your cake.

You may already know but I’ll remind once again: Eggs are an indispensable ingredient in this recipe. However, instead of using too many eggs, you can also add cornstarch and condensed milk to keep the moisture and softness of the cake.

With beautiful colors and delicious taste, I believe this will be your favorite cake.

21. Kuih Bahulu (Malaysian Egg Cake)

Kuih Bahulu is a traditional Malaysian sweet egg cake in the shape of a flower. This is an indispensable dessert in festivals of the local people.

The recipe for this cake is extremely simple. Anyone can make it at home.

What could be better than eating this cake and sipping a cup of coffee? This combination will make it hard to resist.

22. Kuih Bakar Pandan (Baked Pandan Cake)

Kuih Bakar is a sweet and creamy dessert with a wonderful aroma from pandan leaves. Pandan leaves are also the ingredients that make up the beautiful green color of this cake.

Often you will see this cake sold on the street in the shape of large flowers. But if you make your own at home, you can mold it to any shape.

23. Kuih Ketayap (Crepe With Sweet Coconut Filling)

Kuih Ketayap is a crepe roll with the characteristic green color of pandan leaves. The inside is grated coconut soaked with sweet sugar.

For this type of cake, when frying, it should not be submerged in oil but should only be pan-fried. After the cake is finished, just wrap it with coconut inside, and you have a delicious and attractive dessert. How simple it is!

24. Kuih Bingka Ubi (Baked Cassava Cake)

Kuih Bingka Ubi is actually a toasted tapioca cake. The characteristics of this cake are soft, moist, slightly chewy, and extremely fragrant.

The recipe is quite simple, just mix all the ingredients together and bake them. By the time the surface is caramelized, you have succeeded with this cake.

If you accidentally make too much and don’t eat it all, you can store it in the refrigerator. When it’s time to eat again, just reheat in the microwave for 15-20 seconds.

A very simple recipe to make a baked cassava cake for you to follow:

25. Kuih Rose (Honeycomb Cookies)

This is a deep-fried dessert. The basic ingredients of this dish are eggs, rice flour, coconut milk, and sugar. To create a honeycomb shape for this cake, you need to use a certain mold.

A special feature when making this cake is that you need to preheat the mold in an oil pan, then dip the mold into the prepared flour mixture. By doing it, the dough will stick evenly around the mold and create a nice shape.

26. Apam Balik (Peanut Pancake)

Apam Balik is an extremely popular snack in Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries. It is considered an Asian-style pancake.

It is recommended to use a non-stick pan to fry this cake. The sign you’ll know the cake is cooked enough is when its edges are yellow-brown and sticking to the pan.

As for the filling, usually, they will have roasted peanuts, sweet corn cream. However, you can also add other fillings to your taste.

27. Gulab Jamun

This dessert is a traditional Indian dish that is often cooked on important occasions. But later, it has gradually spread to other countries, including Malaysia. It’s also considered Pakistan’s national dessert. 

Gulab Jamun are fried dough balls soaked in sugar syrup. After being fried, the yellow-brown color of the dough balls dipped in sweet sugar syrup is an attractive dessert that gets your heart.

Why Don’t You Try Adding A Little Asian Flavor To Your Meal?

If you are tired of custards or puddings, why not try to renew your family meal with Malaysian desserts? A little Asian flavor will make your meal more interesting.

Or, if you are planning to travel to Malaysia, I believe that the above snacks are something you cannot miss in this culinary paradise.

With totally new sweet soups, delicious steamed and fried dishes, maybe you will have new ideas to make a variety of desserts for your family.

If you know of any other Malaysian snacks, let me know in the comments below. If you have tried and succeeded with the above dishes, please share them with us.