Chinese new year pudding

(Date 2 Feb 2013)

The 21st recipe in 2013! This recipe of Chinese new year pudding, a.k.a. Nin Go (年糕)  is from a fellow blogger Sally Ho, which can be found here (link). 

What I used:
150g glutinous flour
43g wheat flour (a.k.a. Tang flour)
175ml water
115g jaggery (Indian unrefined cane sugar)
100ml coconut cream
1/2 tbp sunflower oil

What I did:
whack the jaggery into pieces (I used a rolling pin, though a hammer or malet could be some better tool to use). / dissolve the jaggery in a pot of boiling water. leave aside to cool. / mix glutinous flour & wheat flour in a large bowl. / add the sugary water into the flour. mix well. / add coconut cream & oil & mix well. / pour into an oiled christmas pudding basin, put 2 pieces of kitchen towels on the top of the basin before the lid. / steam in a pressure cooker for 40 minutes (setting 1) / check the doneness with a cake tester and make sure it comes out clean from the centre of the pudding.

What I felt: What a yummy and easy recipe. I had tried 2 other CNY pudding recipes last year and they all let me down. But this one didn't disappoint me. The sweetness is just perfectly right for me -- it's considerably less sweet than the store-bought ones so be warned that some people who are too used to the sweetness of commercial CNY puddings may find it not sweet enough. The texture is great too. Not too sticky, especially after being kept in fridge overnight.

How good was it? 9/10. Very good. The 1-mark deduction is due to my stupidity that I didn't use a rectangular foil mould. (Those I got at home were too huge and couldn't fit into my pressure cooker)

How easy was it? 10/10. Very easy. Can't think of too many dessert or festive snack that can be easier than this.

How economical was it? 9/10. Quite economical. Jaggery costs about £1 for 500g (But I only used about a quarter). The two types of flour & coconut cream should collectively costs £1.

Will I make this again? Yes! Plan to make another batch later this week.

Note to self? (1) the kitchen towel between the basin & its lid is to prevent water condensation collected on the pudding surface, (2) it's my first time to use jaggery. i like it a lot. it got a pretty strong flavour of sweet sugar cane. IMHO it definitely trumps any other kind of brown sugar for this recipe, (3) Coconut cream from Waitrose Essential is HORRIBLE. Will try another brand next time.