Course: Sweets

Pumpkin Sticky Rice Balls (南瓜汤圆)

Old China meets the New World in this take on the beloved Chinese tradition of sticky rice balls. But first, a little context.

Pumpkin Sticky Rice Balls (done 2-Ways) served with Ginger Infused Light Syrup (photo by G. Yek)

These round, dainty and chewy rice balls–similar to mochi–are traditionally eaten during the Lantern Festival to mark the end of the two-week long Chinese New Year celebration. The roundness of these rice balls symbolizes unity and togetherness and is hence considered an auspicious food.

The rice balls can be plain or filled with black sesame paste, chopped peanuts or red bean paste, and usually served in light syrup. They can also be served in sweet rice wine syrup with ribbons of cooked egg–not unlike egg drop soup except it’s sweet.

But these days, variations abound, including twists in fillings such as chocolate and fruit preserve. Increasingly, they are considered a dessert and eaten year-round instead of being relegated to just festivals.

Now back to the New World. Thanksgiving is a perfect time to celebrate the pumpkin–a staple in America (once the “New World” relative to old civilizations in Europe and Asia).

This recipe centers on pumpkin–two ways. The first (and easier) variety is to simply incorporate the pumpkin into the sticky rice dough. The second variety uses the pumpkin as a filling and involves a couple extra steps including a slightly more involved preparation of the pumpkin filling.

Whether plain or made with pumpkin, these sticky rice balls are one of those comfort foods best enjoyed with friends and family.

Sweet Pumpkin Sticky Rice Balls
Print Recipe
Pumpkin sticky rice balls served in "sweet soup ' of ginger-infused light syrup.
Servings Prep Time
12 2 hours
Cook Time Passive Time
30 mins 1 hour
Servings Prep Time
12 2 hours
Cook Time Passive Time
30 mins 1 hour
Sweet Pumpkin Sticky Rice Balls
Print Recipe
Pumpkin sticky rice balls served in "sweet soup ' of ginger-infused light syrup.
Servings Prep Time
12 2 hours
Cook Time Passive Time
30 mins 1 hour
Servings Prep Time
12 2 hours
Cook Time Passive Time
30 mins 1 hour
Ingredients
Mixed Pumpkin Dough
Filled Pumpkin Dough
Ginger-infused Light Syrup
Servings:
Instructions
Mixed Pumpkin Dough
  1. Mixed Pumpkin Dough: Mix the spices, honey and pumpkin puree well.
  2. Add pumpkin mixture to sticky rice flour. Form a workable dough with your hand. If the mixture is too dry, add a touch of water. If too wet, use a dusting of flour to correct.
  3. Form dough into a ball, cover with a damp towel and let rest fo 20 minutes.
  4. Using a teaspoon, portion out the dough into little balls. Roll them with your hands to get them as round as possible. Put on a sheet pan lined with a damp towel.
Filled Pumpkin Dough
  1. Mix sticky rice flour with water and work into a ball of dough. Use extra flour or water as necessary to adjust the consistency. Cover with a damp towel and set aside.
  2. Mix the spices, sugar and pumpkin puree well. Add butter. You can use either salted or unsalted butter. I used salted butter for the salty counterpoint to the overall sweetness.
  3. Transfer to a non-stick pan over low heat (use the lowest setting). Very slowly cook for about 20 minutes. This step helps to dry out the mixture to form a thick paste.
  4. Allow pumpkin paste to cool, then transfer to a bowl and refrigerate. The butter will stiffen and help to create a workable paste. This will take about 30 minutes to an hour.
  5. Meanwhile, using a teaspoon, portion out the dough into little balls. Roll them with your hands to get them as round as possible. Put on a sheet pan lined with a damp towel.
  6. Once the pumpkin paste is cold, form half teaspoon balls and set aside.
  7. Take a plain sticky rice ball, flatten it in the palm of your hand. Insert a pumpkin paste ball in the center, then envelop it with the plain rice ball dough. Roll the filled dough with your hands to make it as round as possible. Repeat with the rest of the sticky rice dough and pumpkin paste ball pairings.
  8. Put on a sheet pan lined with a damp towel.
Ginger-infused Light Syrup
  1. Put all ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil while stirring to dissolve the sugar.
  2. Turn off burner and let the mixture steep. Remove the ginger slices after about 15 minutes. If you like a stronger infusion of ginger, allow it to steep longer before removing.
Cooking the rice balls
  1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Put in the raw rice balls but don't overcrowd. Boil until the balls float to the top, signalling that they're cooked.
  2. Strain and serve hot in syrup. Alternatively, you could dunk the freshly boiled rice balls in an ice bath (to stop the cooking process) and immerse them in syrup for serving later.
Recipe Notes

You could also make the ginger-infused light syrup with dark brown sugar for variety. Adjust the sweetness of the syrup to taste.

Black Rice Pudding (“Bee Koe Moy”)

Give me a bowl of sweet black rice pudding topped with luxurious coconut milk and I go inside my happy place. This magical bowl is my definition of comfort food.

Black rice pudding topped with coconut milk

The true magic of black rice is unlocked with slow heat … and patience.  It takes time to cook through the grains to where they split open and release their starch. The result is this beautiful purple-black transformation that’s all at once nutty, smoky and comfortingly starchy.

Black rice, sometimes called black glutinous rice (or “pulut hitam” in the Malay language), is commonly sweetened and made into a dessert in Southeast Asia. This porridge-like dessert, called bee koe moy in my local dialect, is a staple in the nyonya-baba cuisine on the island of Penang where my family is from.

It’s pretty much an all-occasion food, perfect for the afternoon pick-me-up, after-dinner sweet, or even breakfast. The best thing is, it’s so simple to make. You just need slow heat and patience.

The sweet perfume of the pudding comes from pandan leaves. Pandan (or screwpine) leaves are long, slender and pointed leaves widely used in Southeast Asian cooking. The sweet-smelling leaves (sort of a cross between jasmine and vanilla) are widely used in many dessert recipes; just think of it as the “Asian vanilla.”

Whole pandan leaves

I often get asked why add salt to the coconut milk for what is obviously a sweet dish. The practice of adding salt to coconut milk is a long tradition, something I learned from my mother, and I suspect, something she learned from hers. The idea is to contrast the sweetness of the black rice pudding, and indirectly, tease out the sweetness of the pudding. You could compare it to today’s popular salted caramel flavor where the dichotomy of sweet and salty play off each other to new delicious heights. I should confess I’m partial to more coconut milk rather than less, as you can see in the picture.

Enjoy this satisfying treat hot, chilled or at room temperature.  What better way to warm up in the winter months than a hot bowl of this sweet, creamy and dreamy goodness?

Black rice pudding ingredients (clockwise): sugar, black rice and knotted pandan leaves

Black Rice Pudding ("Bee Koe Moy")
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
6-8 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
1 hour 15 minutes 1 hour 15 minutes
Servings Prep Time
6-8 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
1 hour 15 minutes 1 hour 15 minutes
Black Rice Pudding ("Bee Koe Moy")
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
6-8 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
1 hour 15 minutes 1 hour 15 minutes
Servings Prep Time
6-8 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time Passive Time
1 hour 15 minutes 1 hour 15 minutes
Ingredients
Servings:
Instructions
  1. Rinse black rice in water three times and drain. Put rice in a pot and add water and knotted pandan leaves.
  2. Bring to a boil, cover the pot with a lid, and lower the heat to a slow simmer. Let simmer for about an hour, or until the pot has the consistency of porridge (or oatmeal). If you like it a little thinner, simply add more water.
  3. When you have the desired consistency, lift the pandan leaves out. Add the sugar, stir and turn the heat off.
  4. In a separate bowl, add the salt to the coconut milk and mix throroughly.
  5. To serve, spoon rice pudding in a small bowl, then drizzle about 2 tablespoons coconut milk over the bowl.
Recipe Notes

This recipe is easily adaptable to the crock pot. Put rice, water and pandan leaves in a crock pot and cook on “low” for about 5 hours. Then sweeten with sugar and follow the rest of the instructions above.

Mooncakes Recipe: How to make basic “doll” Chinese mooncakes

Mooncakes are normally filled with a sweet center like lotus nut paste, red bean paste or assorted nuts and candied melon. The prized ones even contain salted duck yolk for a nice salty-sweet balance.

finished-mooncakes

My daughter, alongside many other children, generally prefer their mooncakes without filling. There’s something about the dense filling that’s not appealing to young palates. I was the same way when I was a kid.

This recipe is for basic mooncakes. In our household, we sometimes call them “doll” mooncakes, an acknowledgement of the young eaters. These beauties are soft yet slightly chewy. (They are not light and airy in the traditional sense of the word “cake.”)  You could also use cute animal molds for this recipe; in fact, many Asian bakeries do, and the kids’ love it.

The sweet component of this recipe is the golden syrup. I’ve chosen to make it from scratch, which involves bringing sugar syrup to a rich brown color (or a “soft crack” stage at 285 ⁰F  – for all you confectioners out there!), and then “loosening” the syrup by adding water to bring it to a pourable consistency similar to honey. If you’d rather not work with high-temperature sugar, you could simply buy premade golden syrup at your favorite grocery store. I should mention I have not tested this recipe with store-bought golden syrup.

I hope you enjoy making these treats. Put your own spin into it and make the mooncake tradition your own. If you have kids, get them to help you mold the mooncakes; they’ll love seeing a ball of dough “magically” transform into a pretty cake with intricate design.

Please take pictures and show me how yours turn out!

mooncake-ingredients

Mooncakes (basic "doll" mooncakes)
Print Recipe
Mooncakes are baked goodies. When it comes to baking, it's best to stick with weight measurements for more consistent results. However, I've also provided the approximate volumetric equivalents. I've chosen to go the way of metric measurements (grams) for better accuracy with some of the small amounts of ingredients.
Servings Prep Time
18 pieces 2 hours
Cook Time Passive Time
15 minutes 1 hour
Servings Prep Time
18 pieces 2 hours
Cook Time Passive Time
15 minutes 1 hour
Mooncakes (basic "doll" mooncakes)
Print Recipe
Mooncakes are baked goodies. When it comes to baking, it's best to stick with weight measurements for more consistent results. However, I've also provided the approximate volumetric equivalents. I've chosen to go the way of metric measurements (grams) for better accuracy with some of the small amounts of ingredients.
Servings Prep Time
18 pieces 2 hours
Cook Time Passive Time
15 minutes 1 hour
Servings Prep Time
18 pieces 2 hours
Cook Time Passive Time
15 minutes 1 hour
Ingredients
Servings: pieces
Instructions
  1. Golden Syrup: The first 3 ingredients listed are all you need to make your own golden syrup. A candy thermometer is not a requirement but helpful if you have it. If you're comfortable working with high-temperature sugar, you could do this by sight. Or you could simply buy premade golden syrup like Lyle's Golden Syrup at your favorite grocery store. They run around $5 - $6 (ish) for an 11 oz bottle. I have not tested this recipe with store-bought syrup.
  2. Put water, sugar and lemon juice in a pot and bring to a boil on medium heat. Continue on a slow boil while monitoring the temperature of the syrup. Bring the temperature up to 285 ⁰F (the syrup will be a rich brown color), then very slowly add water to the pot to gradually bring the temperature back down to 235 ⁰F. Allow syrup to cool completely before using.
  3. CAUTION: Because the syrup is considerably above the boiling point of water (212 ⁰F), much of the added water will immediately flash and possibly cause burns. Be extremely careful. Be sure to trickle the water into the pot very slowly. You could cut back on the flashing by adding hot or off-the-boil water.
  4. Dough: Lye water is an alkaline solution, usually found in Asian markets as potassium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate solution.
  5. Put oil, golden syrup, vanilla and alkaline solution in a bowl. Whisk the mixture until well-mixed (emulsified). Fold the flour into the liquid mixture. As the dough starts to form, use your hands to mix in the rest of the flour.
  6. You should get a soft but workable dough once the flour has been incorporated. Avoid overworking the dough. Cover the dough and let rest for an hour in the refrigerator.
  7. Preheat convection oven to 375 ⁰F.
  8. Divide the dough out into 30 g (1 ounce) portions. Roll each portion into a ball.
  9. Dust the mooncake mold with flour, then insert a dough ball. Place the mold upright, then press down, and release the molded cake. (I use a 50 g mold purchased on ebay.)
  10. Arrange cakes in a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Mist top of cakes with water (to avoid cracking). Bake for 6 minutes, then remove from the oven. Brush the cakes with egg wash, return to the oven and bake for another 6 to 8 minutes until golden brown.
  11. Do not overbake. The cakes will be very soft when they’re hot off the oven. They will stiffen (but still remain soft) as they cool.
  12. Cool the cakes and store in an air-tight container. The cakes are best served after they’ve rested for 24 hours.