Two styles of baked mochi cakes for Lunar New Year （粑粑糕）

In recent years there’re some Chinese style baked sticky rice cake shops sprouting around the country. These shops are usually called 粑粑坊 (baba workshop), in which “baba” means rice cake (粑粑糕 / baba gao).

These kinds of shops are quite popular and they only sell one kind of products – baked sticky rice sponge cake. Personally, I really love those little spongy yet chewy sweet cakes, so with Lunar New Year coming, I want to show you how to make these cakes that cannot be simpler, and perfect for a last minute little treat if you want to do something for the holiday and don’t have much time.

The cakes here are purple sweet potato flavor, you can switch it to cocoa powder, or skip the add-in and make an original flavor.

The two recipes here would give you two styles of the baked sticky rice cake. One is more mochi-liked and less “cakey” (kinda similar to the Hawaiian butter mochi), the other is more or less an actual sponge cake but plus a chewy effect. And if you want to try the "eggy" style that're sold at baba shops in China, check out the notes.

(The Sponge Cake version, for which the top side is more cracked because of the rich air bubbles from the whisked eggs.)

The Very Mochi Version

Process

Sift all the dry flour + powder ingredient together into a bowl.

Melt butter, mix in milk, sugar, salt, whisk till everything’s dissolved.

Separate egg yolk and egg white. Add the yolks in with the milk mixture, whisk well till everything emulsifies.

Add this egg/milk mixture into the dry ingredient, mix well till no clumps remained. Because sticky rice flour doesn’t have gluten, you can really go at it and no need to worry about over mixing like regular cakes.

Whisk the egg white till it got foamy, gently fold it into the cake batter bit by bit. We’re not aiming for chiffon or sponge cake here but only trying to add a touch more air bubbles in the batter.

After folding all the egg white in, lightly oil your muffin tin, pour the batter into the tin till 80% full.

Bake in a preheated 160C oven for 18 minutes.

To check if it’s done, stick a toothpick in and then take it out, if nothing’s sticking on the toothpick, that means it’s ready.

Take the cakes out and let it cool down on a cooling rack.

For best texture, eat them after it’s completely cooled down.

The Sponge Cake version

Process

Sift all the dry flour + powder ingredient together into a bowl, then whisk in the salt.

Separate egg white and egg yolk. Make sure the bowl for egg white is free of water or oil.

Use an electric mixer, whisk the white, when it starts to foam up a bit, add in a third of the sugar, then whisk. Add in another third of the sugar, whisk again, and repeat it one more time with the final third of the sugar. Whisk the white till you got a stiff peak.

Now take the yolk, add one yolk into the white, whisk well. Then repeat till you add in all the yolks. And now we have our foamy egg mixture.

Now add in about 1/4 of the sifted flour into the egg mixture, gently fold it in from the bottom. Repeat till you add in all the flour.

Take a small sauce pan, warm up the butter and milk to 65C.

Take a bit of that flour/egg mixture, gently mix it into the butter/milk mixture. 

Then gently fold this warm milk/flour batter back into the egg/flour mixture till homogenous.
Generously oil your muffin tin to prevent sticking, pour in the cake batter till 80% full. 

Bake in a preheated 140C oven for 30 minutes. Turn the tin 180 degrees half way through baking to make sure even heating.

To check if it’s done, stick a toothpick in and then take it out, if nothing’s sticking on the toothpick, that means it’s ready.

Take the cakes out and let it cool down on a cooling rack.

For best texture, eat them after completely cooled down.

Notes:

• For chocolate or matcha flavor, swap the 5% purple sweet potato powder to 10% cocoa powder or matcha powder, and then up the sugar by 10% to balance the bitterness.
  
• For a original flavor that's most similar to the ones that're sold at the baba shops, use the recipe for "The sponge cake version", but use five eggs and do not add in milk, also skip the sweet potato powder. This way you'll have the very "eggy" baba cakes (ingredients list below).
  Since this version can be quite "eggy", you can also add in a touch of fresh lemon juice to balance the taste.
  
  
• These cakes got best texture after they’re completely cooled down. And they keep well in room temperature for two days.
  
• When serving, I also like to drizzle on some sweetened condensed milk over them.
  
• Or even better, whip up some cream cheese + powder sugar, pipe it onto the cakes and turn them into little cupcakes!
  
• You can view them as cupcake bases and just explore your favorite cupcake toppings with them, like melted chocolate, buttercream, cream cheese frosting, and so on.

Have fun and happy Lunar New Year!