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AI-generated photograph: Three golden crisp oblong rice cakes fanned on a matte cream stoneware plate, dark glossy brown sugar syrup drizzled across them and pooling beside, a soft dusting of pale yellow soya bean flour over the top, seen from a low side angle, nothing else on the plate

Home · Recipes · Hóngtáng cíbā, brown sugar rice cakes

Sichuan · Desserts

Hóngtáng cíbā, brown sugar rice cakes

crisp rice cakes · brown sugar syrup · toasted soya flour

AI-generated photograph

Hóngtáng cíbā are a Chengdu sweet: chewy cakes of glutinous rice fried until crisp and golden outside, then drizzled with dark brown sugar syrup and dusted with toasted soya bean flour. Crisp, soft and sticky at once, they are the sweet that ends a hot meal.

Contains: soya, as written. Soya is in the roasted soya bean flour (kinako). Glutinous rice flour is made from rice and has no gluten, but buy one labelled gluten free if you are cooking for someone with coeliac disease, as it can be packed alongside wheat flour.

Ingredients

  • 200g glutinous rice flour (also sold as sticky or sweet rice flour; despite the name it contains no gluten), labelled gluten free
  • 150ml vegetable oil, for shallow frying
  • 100g dark muscovado sugar
  • 3 tablespoons roasted soya bean flour (huángdòu fěn, sold as kinako in Japanese food aisles)

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Let's cook

  1. Put the glutinous rice flour in a bowl and stir in about 170ml warm water, a little at a time, until it comes together as a soft, smooth dough like play dough. Add a spoonful more flour or water if needed. Knead for 1 minute.
  2. Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Roll each into a ball, then press it into a flat oblong about 7cm long and 1cm thick.
  3. Make the syrup. Put the sugar and 60ml water in a small pan and stir over a low heat until dissolved. Simmer for 3 to 4 minutes until it coats the back of a spoon. Keep it warm. Hot sugar syrup burns badly, so keep children clear.
  4. Heat the oil in a non stick frying pan on a medium heat. Fry the cakes in 2 batches for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, until golden, crisp and puffed and soft all the way through when pressed. Glutinous dough can spit, so keep a lid or splatter guard handy.
  5. Drain the cakes on kitchen paper for a minute.
  6. Lay 3 cakes on each warm plate, spoon over the warm syrup and dust generously with the roasted soya bean flour through a small sieve. Serve straight away while crisp.

Tips

  • These cakes are very chewy and sticky. Cut them into small pieces for young children and older people, and eat them slowly.
  • They are best eaten fresh. Shaped, uncooked cakes keep covered in the fridge for 1 day; let them come to room temperature before frying.

Swaps

  • No soya bean flour: dust with toasted sesame seeds ground with a little sugar, but note this adds sesame.
  • Chinese slab sugar: use 100g Chinese brown slab sugar (hóngtáng piàn), chopped, instead of muscovado, as Chengdu cooks do.

Our own recipe. The photograph is AI-generated.

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