Mia Bakes: Steamed Milk Rice Cake

Yup, I've been on a steamed (rice) cake craze these days because:

1. There was a crazy shortage of wheat flour recently (they're back on the shelves now, though) and I ended up picking up a pack of rice flour. 

2. My "proper" oven has officially run its course with me and the backup, 'similar-to-an-airfryer' one that we have in the house takes almost 2x the usual time to bake, even at higher temperatures. 

Plus, steamed rice cakes are also gluten-free (not that I'm on this BS "healthy" trend, but my mum does get bloated easily with wheat bread... but she still eats them anyway) and being steamed and not baked also makes them less "heaty".  

So here goes! To get around 8 steamed cupcakes, you'll need:

170g rice flour

190ml water

10g full cream milk powder

60g castor sugar

1.5 tsp baking powder

Optional: 

1 tsp dried Osmanthus flower

I intended to make this Osmanthus flavour, hence I only added a little bit of the milk powder such that the milky flavour will not overpower the Osmanthus flavour. To make rice cakes with only milk flavour, you can replace the water with milk instead. The amount of sugar is also nearly the bare minimum for you to taste an obvious sweetness in the cakes, so I'll not recommend reducing it any further, unless you don't mind a bland steamed cake. 

This recipe is super easy to make, and you'll only need a large bowl and a whisk. Dump all your ingredients in and mix until you get a smooth, watery batter. But since I'm adding Osmanthus flower, I will need to let the flowers steep in some hot water first. 

So to roughly 100ml of hot water, add in 1 tsp of Osmanthus dried flower and let it steep for 10 to 15 minutes, before adding in the remaining 180ml room temperature water. Then, all in all the dry ingredients and mix until everything is well combined. 

Divide your batter equally into your cupcake/muffin moulds that's lined with cupcake liners. 

Once your moulds are filled, steam them at high heat immediately if you wish to achieve the open-mouth, huat kueh look. If you prefer to have your steamed cake with a dome-top, steam them at a low to medium heat instead. 

Depending on your steamer and heat, steam your rice cakes for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

Do make sure that your moulds are laid perfectly FLAT for them to open up nicely/symmetrically.

These steamed cakes are best eaten when still warm from the steamer, as they'll harden up considerably when cooled, and the texture will be very similar (though not nearly as hard) to a cold huat kueh. It will regain some softness if you reheat them up slightly in the steamer again, but they'll never be as soft as they were when freshly steamed. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Osmanthus Rice Cake

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

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Mia Bakes: Osmanthus Green Tea Yogurt Cake

 Well, my upcoming (almost) 2 weeks NZL trip is a couple of days and with a more than 3/4 tub of plain greek yogurt left sitting in the fridge, I felt the need to bake something with it. Just, anything. 

And since it just so happened that I bought a pack of dried osmanthus flower at Phoon Huat recently, and there's still a good amount of green tea powder left sitting in my baking cabinet, how about putting all these together into a cake?

So to get 1 loaf cake of 8 to 10 slices, you'll need:

50g superfine wholemeal flour

145g all purpose flour 

2 tsp green tea powder

40ml green tea flavoured milk 

1 tbsp dried osmanthus flower

1 large egg

60g castor sugar 

70ml vegetable oil

100g plain greek yogurt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tbsp baking powder

1 tbsp chia seeds (optional)

Note: I personally felt that the green tea taste could have been a lot stronger, so I would probably try with at least 1 tbsp of green tea powder next time. Sweetness level of this cake is also greatly reduced, so you may increase the amount of sugar according to your preference. 

You may also use 195g of all purpose flour instead of using a mixture of superfine wholemeal and all purpose flours.

First up, heat up your milk in a pot over the hob until it starts to simmer and add in the osmanthus flower. Give it a light stir, take it off the heat and set it aside for the osmanthus flower to steep, and also for the mixture to cool down. 

In a clean bowl, add in your greek yogurt, egg, oil and cooled osmanthus milk mixture and stir well to combine. Sift in your dry ingredients and fold with a spatula until just combined. Tip in the chia seeds (if you fancy them) and give it a quick fold with the spatula to combine. 

Pour your batter into a small loaf pan (mine roughly measures 18cm by 5.5cm) greased with non-stick cooking spray and bake it at a 175 degree Celsius oven for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

Let it cool down for about 5 minutes in the loaf pan (until it's cool enough for you to handle) before tipping the cake out onto a wire rack and leave it to cool completely. 

And there you have it, osmanthus green tea yogurt cake! The addition of yogurt makes the cake extremely moist and tender. And although the addition of dried osmanthus flower did not really give the cake a very distinctive osmanthus taste, it did give the cake a very nice and sweet osmanthus aroma. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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