Steamed Rice Cake / 蒸米糕

It has been awhile I last posted about homemade dishes. I am still cooking but hard to find time for photo shooting with two little monkeys around. For time being, please help yourselves with some snacks and cakes I made during their nap time.

I fond on this cake ever since I was a little kid, simply because one of my aunts made very good steamed rice cake. She passed away quite young, in her mid 40s if I remember correctly. Cakes she made were soft and fluffy, every mouthful of wonderful rice aroma without the yeasty smell and sourly taste. I regretted that did not learn to make this cake from her, I was too little then.

I searched for the recipe for sometimes, and found this recipe using traditional method which means.... no shortcut! Some other recipes called for instant yeast, cakes made with this type of yeast tend to have yeasty and sourly taste. So, I settled on the traditional method. The process seemed time consuming but it was actually pretty easy to make. Verdict? The "hard" work paid off, cakes had great texture and aroma. It was almost perfect, except the dome shape. I guess I can work on it a bit.

Actually my nose was blocked on the day the cake was made, could not smell a thing. Why I made it when I was sick? You will know as you read on the recipe. I ate some leftover cake the next day, straight from the fridge. Surprisingly, it did not hardened and thank god that I was able to get the sweet rice aroma I missed.

It is known as Apam Tapai in Malay, this recipe is belong to sofinar from Myresipi. Translated recipe as follows:

Ingredients (makes 30 pieces depending on the size of mould):
1 bowl of rice, room temperature
1/4 tapai yeast
1 bowl sugar
2 bowl water
2 bowl rice flour
2 tsp eno

Methods:

1. Ground the tapai yeast, and sprinkle over rice. Mix until well blended. Cover bowl with plastic and set aside for two days or until it is watery.
2. Add in sugar in batches and mix until sugar is melted.
3. Add half amount of the water, mix well.
4. Add in rice flour and mix well.
5. Then add in remaining amount of water and mix well.
6. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 5-6 hours.
7. Just before steaming, add in eno and stir well.
8. Steam in a preheated steamer for 15 minutes.
   

Cook's notes:

• I used 200ml bowl for this recipe.
• Steamed over medium heat.
• Made roughly 20 pieces, regular muffin case size.
• Added some food colouring.
• To reduce the amount of eno next time, for better dome. Perhaps?
• The fermented rice is yellowish in colour and has sweet wine aroma.

* * * Updated on 1 May 2010 * * *

This is the yeast I used, it says Ragi (means yeast in Malay) on the label. Got it from Tesco, forgotten the price. I saw something like this at Asian Market in Sydney before, also packed in individual pack like this. The size is about 4 cm in diameter, mine left half for photo shooting.