Easy and healthy Chinese steamed rice cake recipe (Rice Fa gao) that you will love once you tried. I have planned quite a long time ago to make the two types of Chinese steamed rice cake with videos. And finally I bring the two on the blog.
There are two types of Chinese steamed rice cake– one is made from pure rice flour (with large spongy like holes) and the other one is made with rice flour and plain flour (with small holes). Although the ingredients are similar, the two types of steamed rice cakes are different. Pure rice flour rice cake, also known as Bai Tang Gao in mandarin and Bak Tong Gao in Cantonese, is fluffy and chewy. Usually Bai Tang Gao is served after cooling down. However rice fa gao should be served when still warm. This post introduces steamed rice fa gao firstly and then Bai tang gao recipe will come later in next recipe.
In China, this is usually served as a dessert as breakfast or between meals. My favorite serving way is with tea as those rice cakes are a little bit too sweet for me.
The batter for this one is quick thick, something similar to chiffon cake batter. The final steamed rice cake is not middle fluffy and dry. We have another steamed rice cake with a thin batter, which is moist and more fluffy.
Steamed Chinese rice cake-- Rice Fa Gao
- 250 g water milled rice flour
- 50 g plain flour
- 120 g to 150g sugar
- 210 ml hot water
- 5 g instand yeast
- Oil for brushing
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Dissolve sugar in hot water and set aside to cool down to warm or room temperature (under 38 degree C)
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Mix rice flour, flour and yeast in a large mixing bowl and stir in sugar liquid. Combine and mix well.
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Set aside to ferment for 2-4 hours based on the temperature. It takes me 2.5 hours in room temperature around 25-28 degree C until there are lots of small bubbles on the surface and the batter rises twice.
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Brush the moulds with oil and scoop the liquid to full 80% full. Bring water to boil in wok and then steam the cakes for 20 minutes over high fire.
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Wait for 5 minutes, transfer out, cool down slightly and de-mould when still warm.
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This cake should be served warm. Reheat before serving if necessary.
The left rice cakes should be covered with a wet cloth or plastic wrapper to avoid drying out. Reheat before next serving.
The Nutrition Facts is based on each single Fa Gao.
I have been successful on almost every recipe you posted here, but not this one. I don’t know why.
First of all, after I add half amount of the rice flour into boiling water, all water was obsorbed completely by the flour. It was difficult to add another half flour and kept it a little running like your picture shows here. I added more water and another half flour; the batter still didn’t like yours; mine was too dry. Second, the batter didn’t raise. I used coconut sugar instead of normal sugar. What’s wrong here? I failed on this one.
Hi Vicky,
Thanks for your feedback. I have made a mistake about the amount of water used. It should be around 2 cups or 2 plus 1/2 cups of boiling water. I have updated the recipe.
For the second question, try to place the batter container in warm places if the room temperature is low and wait for a longer time. It will raise as long as the yeast is working. Remember use warm water around 35 degree C to melt the yeast. Hot water will kill your yeast.
Thinks for the answer.
Pls…may I ask if you can….use cups, tablespoon next your blog…or I
nstead of ml or grams ?thanks…
Hi, just so you know I just try your recipe today but you forgot to update the liquid amount in your recipe (should be around 475ml/2cups not 220ml/1 cup).
Clover,
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Would you please send me a picture of your version with 2 cups water?
I am going to try it again. Really miss the taste of rice cake I normally ate in my childhood. Thanks a lot. 🙂
Thanks for your kindness Vicky. It is my childhood cake too. Enjoy and Merry Christmas.
Hi
I tried your recipe and it didn’t work:( I’m thinking that maybe the flour/yeast I used was wrong. Can you post links if possible for the 2 ingredients?
Thank you 🙂
Hi Agnes,
Those steamed cake can be made with very common rice flour and instead yeast. Can you just give me more details so that I can help to try to figure out what’s wrong. The rice flour is the plain rice flour but sticky rice flour. In most cases, it should be the proofing process. I have updated the recipe to proof it in larger container instead of the steaming container. So you can check the proofing process easier. Please try again and let me know about how it works.
Hi Elaine,
When I added the flour to the boiling water it took all the water, once I added the second part of the flour I had to add more water but it never became as watery as yours on the pic. I added sugar and yeast, waited and then I mixed and purred into another container and then I waited a little bit longer and steamed for about 40 min as I had 1 big container not the small ones. Do you think that this was my mistake?
Thank you for helping me :):)
Agnes
Hi Agnes,
The problem might lay in the flour. If it is slightly waxy, the flour might become a dough after mixing with boiling water. Would you please try again with the latest recipe to directly mix all the flour with room temperature water.
I was so looking forward to trying this recipe. I saved it for weeks till I found the right rice flour. I let it proof all afternoon till it was heavily foamy. Poured into ramekins and steamed for 15. Opened and there was no way they were done. They looked like pots of glue. So I steamed for another 15 and still not done. Taking it off the stove. They’re not firming up at all. When I tasted the goo it just tastes like sweet yeast. Nothing like I’ve had at Asian restaurants. So disappointed.
Hi Tonya,
Thanks for your feedback and there might be something wrong during the process. Just wait me for sometime and I will update a video showing how to make those steamed rice cake at home, so you guys can follow the exact process.
Hi, you said that you’d upload a video. Have you done it? I have an assesment this week and wanted to know how they worked.
Thank you
Hi Carla,
The video is not done yet because I move my house last week. But I will be as quick as possible.
after having them in water for 2 days how to store them? in water? room temperature? kid wants them for lunch every day
Hi Marla,
It is really nice to hear that you succeeded with this recipe. I get too many failure reports. Our traditional way is to store them in water and cover with a wet gauze from drying out. They can be kept for around 3 days in winter.
Hi Elaine,
It was the rice flour I was using, Bob’s Red Mill, but once I switched to thai rice flour I got a prefect rice cake :):)
Agnes :):)
Great News Agnes! And thanks for bringing that to attention.
Hi,
My batch comes out very runny, am i supposed to add the flour to the ‘boiling’ water like some mention here. The recipe asks for room temp…
I am worry it will not rise due to the batter looks runny to me..?!
Hi Selina,
What type of flour are you using? Water grounded or some other type?
Runny batter..
Can glutinous rice flour be used instead? If so how much is needed?
Hi Lily,
I am not sure about whether glutinous rice flour can work now. And I am planning to figure that out soon.
Can you use cake flour or glutinous rice flour instead of rice flour? Will the results be the same? If so, do I use the same amount?
Hi Baili,
I have never used cake flour or glutinous rice flour actually for the steamed rice cake. I will figure out soon and update the recipe when the test is done.
i tried the recipe, but it didn’t work.
Hi Burce,
What type of rice flour are you using? I get failure report form some readers because of the wrong type of flour.
Is it possible to swap yeast wth baking powder or soda
Yeah.Baking powder can work but never tried with baking soda. However the taste might be slightly different.
Thanks for the receipe, I’ve tried to find rice flour in some malls , but they aren’t import rice flours, so what kind of fluor should I use, is it good to use potato starch, or corn flour?
Thank you.
Hi Thimwemwe,
If you want the exact taste, using other flour is not a good choice. However we make steamed cake with corn flour and wheat flour.
Hi Elaine, what is water milled rice flour? Thanks.
Hi Elisabeth,
Water milled rice flour is different from directly grounded rice flour. Usually, the rice is soaked with water and then milled. After that, we will use large gauze to remove the water. The last step is to dry the wet rice flour. Water milled rice flour will be finer.
This recipe is NOT correct!!!!! What a waste of money, time and energy I put into making these today!!!!!!! I have been eating steamed rice cakes for many, many years and now of them are like the result of this recipe!!!!! They turned brown during the steaming process, they are heavy, pastey and the longer they cooked the more that stuck to the toothpick during the doneness test! Advise to others….use a different recipe! Even with the additional water they still were a HUGE failure!!!
Can I use coconut milk instead of water?
Yes, you can replace it for sure.
Hi Elaine
Can I cut down the sugar from this recipe.. significantly? Only adding 20g of sugar for example, I do not want a sweet rice cake and would like to have this dipped in savory curry instead. Looking forward to you reply, 10Q.
Hi there,
You can slightly reduce the sugar but I am not sure whether savory curry taste good in this recipe.
I’m falling in love of this recipe I must do it!
Can you put the measurement in cups and not grams. I had a hard time converting gram to cup.
Hi Mai…I want that kind of measurements too. Mostly I use the cups & tablespoon, teaspoon…NOT ml or grams!!!
Hi Lulu,
I understand that cups and tbsp measurement is much easier than gram if you do not have a kitchen scale in kitchen. But weight measurement is the most accurate method. I will try to give out the volume measurement in future recipes.
I like to use baking powder and not yeast. How much baking powder to replace the yeast???
You can only substitute part of the yeast. For example using 1 gram baking powder+ 4 grams yeast.
Is this very moist inside. I’m looking for a recipe that is extremely moist almost wet to the touch and so far have not found what I am looking for. I get the dessert in a Chinese buffet.
hello
my question is, Can i replace the yeast with something else ? I have yeast allergy and i would love to try this recipe!
Thank you
There is a mixed flour with baking powder, which can be used to make this recipe. It is called “预拌粉”. You can try to search it.