13 Desserts for Your Lunar New Year Spread

February 10 marks a new lunar year and no feast — be it big or small — is complete without something sweet. Ring in the Year of the Dragon with any (or all) of our takes on these Lunar New Year desserts.

A common celebration dish, Ba Bao Fan, also known as "eight treasure rice," belongs on your table. The eye-catching sweet rice is studded with eight different fruits, nuts and seeds. Although the bejeweled dessert is brushed with sugar syrup before serving, it’s not heavily sweet. But you can always whip up some extra sugar syrup on the side to satisfy more insatiable sweet tooths.

A popular Lunar New Year gift, Nian Gao is the chewy, bouncy sweet rice flour cake you won't be able to wait to sink your teeth into. Enjoy as is, dipped in condensed milk or pan-fried, for a lightly crispy exterior into a warm, luscious inside.

Yaksik, also known as yakbap, is a subtly sweet, slightly salty Korean rice cake made with glutinous rice, honey and a variety of nuts and dried fruits. This recipe highlights the mix-ins most commonly found in traditional yaksik, but feel free to customize to your preference with your favorite dried fruits and nuts. Yaksik can be enjoyed in a variety of ways: Scoop it fresh from the pot and serve it right away; spoon it into muffin or cupcake pans for individual portions to eat later; or like this recipe, mold it into a baking dish, then cut it into bars to eat as a snack or dessert.

This deep-fried cookie, soaked in a mixture of jochung (Korean rice syrup) and honey, comes in many shapes, textures and sizes. The most common varieties are pressed in a yakgwa press or mold. Since the specialty press may be hard to find in the US, our version calls for cutting the laminated dough into bite-size squares. With a little bit of patience and planning, you can enjoy these crumbly, pie-like cookies with a side of sikhae, Korean sweet rice punch or herbal tea.