I vaguely remembered my very first taste of the Osmanthus flavour that wasn't just purely sugar in disguise in the form of some green tea, was a good 8 years ago during my visit to Suzhou/Hangzhou, China when I had a taste of 桂花糕 (osmanthus cake).
-credits to guilinholiday-
Not to be confused with the jelly version, the traditional osmanthus cakes are made with a mixture of rice and glutinous rice flour, osmanthus flower and sugar, and then steamed over boiling water till set/cooked. When eaten warm, they're soft and slightly chewy with a distinctive osmanthus scent and a very mild and subtle sweetness. When cooled, they'll actually turn pretty hard and dry, like a crumbly, powdery biscuit.
This type of traditional 桂花糕 is nearly impossible to find in Singapore, so I guess the only way for me to taste it again is to make them myself! And when's a better time than now to do it, when everyone is snatching plain/bread/cake flours for baking and tapioca starch for boba pearls?
To get 8 servings of 桂花糕, you'll need:
100g rice flour
25g glutinous rice flour
60ml brewed osmanthus tea
(I used 2 tsp dried osmanthus flower and 1 tsp sugar in a cup of hot water and left it to steep until cooled)
6 deglet noor dates, pitted and chopped
45g brown sugar
(you may omit the dates and use more sugar)
Mould(s) of your choice
recipe adapted from Amanda Tastes
I used a silicon cake mould, but I will advise against it as it's too wobbly on its own and will cause the cake to crack when you are putting it into the steamer. You can also make smaller versions in a muffin tin. :)
It's actually pretty simple to make these osmanthus cake. In a clean bowl, add in the rice flour and glutinous rice flour and give it a quick stir with a balloon whisk to combine. Then, slowly trickle in the osmanthus tea as you continue stirring the flours. It will slowly form small lumps, and you may need a little bit more tea, depending on the hydration level of your flours, so always make sure you have more than just 60ml of the liquid on hand. Add enough water such that there's no pockets of dry flour and you can get the flour to stick together into a piece of dough by just pressing them in your hands. And at the same time, with the slightest pressure of your fingers, you can crumble the big piece of dough back into its powdery form. Drain out the osmanthus flower from the rest of the tea, pat them as dry as you can and set them aside.
You can check out Amanda's video (link above under ingredient list) to better understand the flour condition you should get.
After the flour mixture is hydrated, comes the hardest part. Sifting!
With a good amount of patience, slowly press the hydrated flour mixture through a sieve and into a large bowl. You'll eventually get back a bowl of fluffy flour mixture and then it's time to start assembling the cake!
Spray down your choice of mould with some non-stick cooking spray (or grease it with butter) amd spoon half the amount of flour mix into the mould LIGHTLY. Do not try to pack the flour down, but leave it light and fluffed. If you're left with an uneven surface, use a fork to even out the surface lightly without applying any form of pressure onto the flour.
Then sprinkle the chopped dates and brown sugar evenly on top, making sure to cover up the whole surface, even the corners. If not you'll be left with corner pieces of the rice cake with no fillings in between. Take half of your drained osmanthus flower and sprinkle them over the sugar filling, before topping the mould up with the remaining half of the flour mixture.
Even out the surface lightly with a fork before sprinkling the rest of the drained osmanthus flower over the top.
Place the assembled cake into the steamer or over a double boiler on the hob and steam for 15 to 20 minutes until cooked. The cake is done when it's firm to the touch when you press down on the surface.
The cake might be too delicate to handle when just hot out of the steamer, hence do leave it to cool down for a bit before trying to unmould and slicing it.
My top flour layer was a little too thin, hence the cracks. T.T
When warm, this rice cake is soft and slightly chewy with a yummy sweetness from the chopped dates and brown sugar filling and a pleasant Osmanthus scent. If it weren't for the calories, I would have easily eaten all 8 slices at one go.
When left to cool completely (overnight) the cake will significantly harden up to give a dry and crumbly texture, but still sweet and delicious!
Till then,
Mia Foo
