Steamed Purple Rice Cake is a classic chinese style Steamed Rice Cake, best known for its signature honeycomb cake texture. So unbelievably soft chewy and bouncy.
1 square pan (7 inch) or 1 round pan (7 inch diameter)
Ingredients
Ingredients A:
150gramspurple sweet potato
600mlwater
80gramssugar, 60 - 80grams
200gramsrice flour, sifted
2pandan leaves, knotted
Ingredients B: (Yeast Fermentation)
30mlwater, lukewarm
½tbspsugar, 8 grams
2tspyeast, 4 grams
Other ingredient:
1tspcooking oil
Prevent your screen from going dark
Instructions
Preparing Rice Cake batter:
Have ready all ingredients needed to make the batter.
Peel and cut purple sweet potatoes into small cubes. Then put into a pan together with the knotted pandan leaves and add in water. Bring to a boil. Then using low heat, cover and cook for 15 minutes.
Then strain 400 ml of the hot purple water into a measuring cup. Add in sugar. Stir to mix well and ensure the sugar is fully dissolved.
Next, sift rice flour into a large mixing bowl. Pour in the strained purple liquid. Using a whisk stir continuosly till there is no lumps and a smooth purple coloured batter is formed. Then set aside to allow the batter to cool down to room temperature.
Preparing Yeast Fermentation:
While waiting for the batter to cool, prepare to ferment the yeast. Measure and prepare all ingredients needed to ferment the yeast.
In a small bowl, add in lukewarm water, sugar and yeast. Stir well and set aside for 10 minutes or till the mixture turns foamy.
Preparing steaming tray:
Meanwhile, prepare the steaming pan by brushing the tray with some cooking oil. This will prevent the cooked batter to stick to the pan when steamed.
Making Purple Steamed Rice Cake:
When the yeast mixture has turned foamy, pour the fermented yeast into the completely cooled batter. Stir and mix well. Then cover with a cling wrap and set aside tp proof for 2 hours.
After 2 hours, remove cling wrap and stir again to release the air bubbles.Then add in the cooking oil. Stir and mix well again.
Pour the batter into the prepared steaming pan. Prepare steamer by bringing water to a rolling boil. Steam on high heat for 30 minutes or until cooked.
Remove from steamer and allow to cool before cutting. Once it is cool enough to handle, gently run a knife along the edges to loosen the cake from pan. Place a wire rack over the pan and flip the cake on to the wire rack. Then, flip again and cut into wedges.
Serve at room temperature with some hot tea and Enjoy!
You can adjust the amount of sugar in this recipe for a healthier version. (60g for less sweet to 80g sweet)
It is important to wait for the batter to cool until only warm to touch or room temperature before adding the fermented yeast. Otherwise the yeast may not be effective and there will not be any honey combed structure formed.
Proof the rice batter in a warm place.
If the yeast is fully activated at the end of the proofing time, you will see lots of air bubbles in the batter.
Always give the rice batter a final stir so everything is well mixed before pouring into the steaming pan to steam.
Store leftover cake in an air tight container and keep in refrigerator for maximum 1 week. Use a steamer to reheat before consuming.
Ideal pan size is 7 - 8 inch pan. Try not to use smaller pan as this rice cake is not meant to be a tall cake. Probably about 1 1/2 inch in height. If the cake is too tall, the honey comb structure may not be obvious as it may not extend that long.