Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Chinese New Year Turnip Cake Recipe
makes about 24 slices
2 1/2 to 3 cups daikon, peeled and julienned or shredded (about 1 1/2 to 2 lbs.)
1 Chinese sausage, finely diced
2 cups rice flour (do not use glutinous rice flour)
1 3/4 cups water, divided
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
Vegetable oil
Stir fry Chinese sausage in a large frying pan or work for 2 to 3 minutes. Add daikon, 3/4 cups water, salt, and white pepper. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat.
Grease a square cake pan or loaf pan and start the steamer.
Mix rice flour with 1 cup water. Add the daikon and sausage mixture and spread into the greased pan. Steam for 50 minutes.
Cool overnight in refrigerator. After cooling, cut the cake into 1/4" slices and pan fry in a liberal amount of oil until both sides are golden brown.
Serve with soy sauce paste (or oyster sauce or hoisin sauce).
You can also add shitake mushrooms and/or small dried shrimp, but I didn't have either and, as Annie said, you can't really go wrong with Chinese sausage.
The hardest part about making this was finding a dish to steam the cake in. Since I was using my stock pot and pasta insert to steam, I needed something that would fit, and none of my square (or even circular) cake pans were small enough. So I improvised with a large serving bowl, and it did the trick.
Another hard part? Reading the recipe correctly. For some reason, I thought it said 1 1/2 to 2 cups instead of lbs. so I only had about half as much daikon as I needed in there. The result was a drier cake than you get in the restaurants, but still edible, although boys will eat anything.... So learn from my mistakes and read the recipe correctly, okay?
2 1/2 to 3 cups daikon, peeled and julienned or shredded (about 1 1/2 to 2 lbs.)
1 Chinese sausage, finely diced
2 cups rice flour (do not use glutinous rice flour)
1 3/4 cups water, divided
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
Vegetable oil
Stir fry Chinese sausage in a large frying pan or work for 2 to 3 minutes. Add daikon, 3/4 cups water, salt, and white pepper. Bring to a boil, then remove from heat.
Grease a square cake pan or loaf pan and start the steamer.
Mix rice flour with 1 cup water. Add the daikon and sausage mixture and spread into the greased pan. Steam for 50 minutes.
Cool overnight in refrigerator. After cooling, cut the cake into 1/4" slices and pan fry in a liberal amount of oil until both sides are golden brown.
Serve with soy sauce paste (or oyster sauce or hoisin sauce).
You can also add shitake mushrooms and/or small dried shrimp, but I didn't have either and, as Annie said, you can't really go wrong with Chinese sausage.
The hardest part about making this was finding a dish to steam the cake in. Since I was using my stock pot and pasta insert to steam, I needed something that would fit, and none of my square (or even circular) cake pans were small enough. So I improvised with a large serving bowl, and it did the trick.
Another hard part? Reading the recipe correctly. For some reason, I thought it said 1 1/2 to 2 cups instead of lbs. so I only had about half as much daikon as I needed in there. The result was a drier cake than you get in the restaurants, but still edible, although boys will eat anything.... So learn from my mistakes and read the recipe correctly, okay?
How to Make New Year Celebration Cake
To make this cake you will need...
3 square cakes (each layer should be 2 inches smaller than the one below...ie 4, 6, and 8 inches will work great)
1 large cake board
square cake dividers in sizes that match the size of your cakes (ie 4, 6, and 8 inches)
wooden dowels
white buttercream icing
white fondant (optional)
red, yellow, and blue gumpaste
red and yellow royal icing
red and blue icing colors
tips #2 or 3 (optional) #5, and #21
Directions:
Step 1
A few days in advance, make the gumpaste streamers and royal icing letters.
To make the streamers, roll out pieces of gumpaste to look like long, skinny, tube shapes. Just like when you played with Play-dough as a kid. To get a curly effect, wrap the gumpaste around a wooden dowel and let dry. The coiled pieces were made by curling the gumpaste on a flat surface. All gumpaste pieces should dry for at least 24 hours on wax paper.
***Decorator's Tip*** Before you go to bed, flip your pieces and they will dry faster. Be careful, they may stick to the wax paper.
To make the letters and numbers you do not have to have perfect piping skills. Write the words Happy New Year and 2006 on a piece of paper. Lay wax or parchment paper over top and trace using royal icing and tip #5. Let them dry over night.
***Decorator's Tip*** You can also print the letters and numbers off the computer. For added decoration, pipe over each letter/number again using tip #2 or 3. The royal icing will need to harden slightly for this to work.
Step 2
Place each cake on the appropriate cake divider. Level, tort, and fill each cake. Then, ice the cakes with white buttercream icing. At this point you can either leave your cakes iced in buttercream or you can cover them in fondant.
Step 3
Stack your cakes. If you are nervous about traveling with this cake, hammer a sharpened dowel through the center of all 3 tiers.
Step 4
Pipe your boarder using tip #21. I made stars around each tier. You have 2 options to get a striped effect.
Step 5
Place your decorations around the cake. To help them stay you can use a dot of buttercream icing. If your cake is covered in fondant, royal icing will hold the best.
3 square cakes (each layer should be 2 inches smaller than the one below...ie 4, 6, and 8 inches will work great)
1 large cake board
square cake dividers in sizes that match the size of your cakes (ie 4, 6, and 8 inches)
wooden dowels
white buttercream icing
white fondant (optional)
red, yellow, and blue gumpaste
red and yellow royal icing
red and blue icing colors
tips #2 or 3 (optional) #5, and #21
Directions:
Step 1
A few days in advance, make the gumpaste streamers and royal icing letters.
To make the streamers, roll out pieces of gumpaste to look like long, skinny, tube shapes. Just like when you played with Play-dough as a kid. To get a curly effect, wrap the gumpaste around a wooden dowel and let dry. The coiled pieces were made by curling the gumpaste on a flat surface. All gumpaste pieces should dry for at least 24 hours on wax paper.
***Decorator's Tip*** Before you go to bed, flip your pieces and they will dry faster. Be careful, they may stick to the wax paper.
To make the letters and numbers you do not have to have perfect piping skills. Write the words Happy New Year and 2006 on a piece of paper. Lay wax or parchment paper over top and trace using royal icing and tip #5. Let them dry over night.
***Decorator's Tip*** You can also print the letters and numbers off the computer. For added decoration, pipe over each letter/number again using tip #2 or 3. The royal icing will need to harden slightly for this to work.
Step 2
Place each cake on the appropriate cake divider. Level, tort, and fill each cake. Then, ice the cakes with white buttercream icing. At this point you can either leave your cakes iced in buttercream or you can cover them in fondant.
Step 3
Stack your cakes. If you are nervous about traveling with this cake, hammer a sharpened dowel through the center of all 3 tiers.
Step 4
Pipe your boarder using tip #21. I made stars around each tier. You have 2 options to get a striped effect.
- You can fill your piping bag half with red and half with blue icing but make sure it is evenly divided.
- Paint a thick stripe of red coloring on the left side of your piping bag and a thick stripe of blue coloring on the right side. Fill the bag with white buttercream icing and pipe your boarder.
Step 5
Place your decorations around the cake. To help them stay you can use a dot of buttercream icing. If your cake is covered in fondant, royal icing will hold the best.
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