Steamed Rice Cake or Bai Tang Gao (白糖糕 in Cantonese ~white sugar cake) is a traditional Chinese snack made from rice flour, sugar and yeast and this was commonly found in the dim sum restaurants and food street stalls some 40 years back. I remember when I was a little girl, my family would usually go to the tea house (茶楼) to have our morning breakfast during the weekends and this pure white steamed rice cake is one of my favourites. But sad to say this dim sum is hardly available in the dim sum restaurants nowadays.

If you are craving for a piece of this rice cake, why not try to make some at home. It is very easy to make this rice cake as only a few ingredients are needed except that you’ll need to wait for 2 hours for the batter to ferment. The cake texture is not too sweet but soft, tender and a little chewy. Pandan leaves were added to enhance the fragrance of this steamed rice cake. You can see the honeycomb-like tunnel texture in the cake after steaming. Just perfect for tea break.

Chinese Steamed Rice Cake

Steamed Rice Cake or Bai Tang Gao (白糖糕 in Cantonese ~white sugar cake) is a traditional Chinese snack made from rice flour, sugar and yeast. The cake texture is not too sweet but soft, tender and a little chewy. Perfect for tea break!

Author Ann Low

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 25

Fermenting Time 2

Total Time 2 40

Course Dim Sum

Cuisine Chinese

Difficulty Easy

Servings pieces

Allergen Gluten Free

Ingredients

140 g rice flour
100 g castor sugar - or to taste
300 ml water - half to the flour and half for the syrup
4 pandan leaves (screwpine leaves) - knotted
1/2 tsp dried instant yeast
1 tbsp lukewarm water
1/2 tsp corn oil - vegetable oil
1 tsp baking powder

Instructions

Place 140 gm of rice flour into a big bowl. Add 150ml of water to the flour and mix well with a whisk.
In a small pot, add 150ml water, sugar and pandan leaves together. Bring to boil and lower heat, simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and remove the pandan leaves.
Pour the hot syrup into the rice flour liquid, gently whisk mixture until smooth and pass through a sieve. Then cool until lukewarm, about 20 minutes.
Dissolve yeast with 1 tablespoon of lukewarm water and leave it for 5 mins or until it bubbles. Then stir the yeast into the batter and add 1/2 tsp of oil and stir well.
Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and rest for about 2 hours or until you see foamy bubbles.
Add 1tsp baking powder and stir well the mixture again. Then pour it into 7 cupcake liners. Top with goji berries (this is optional) You may steam it in a small shallow plate greased with oil.
Steam the rice cake on high heat under boiling water for about 20-25 minutes or skewer inserted into cake comes out clean.
Rice cake can be served warm or cool.