EASY Chinese New Year Cake (Baked Nian Gao)
This EASY Chinese New Year Cake Recipe, or Baked Nian Gao, is sweet, sticky, and gooey with that mochi-like consistency when piping hot. (It's also delicious pan-fried.) Traditionally, Nian Gao is steamed but that takes forever, and you have to add the right amount of water for the New Year Cake to come out right. Baked Nian Gao is so much quicker and more forgiving and the crisp exterior-soft interior is scrumptious! Plus everything is readily available, no need to head for the Asian markets! (Dairy-free version tested.)
- Prep time
- 5 min
- Cook time
- 50 min
- Yield
- 8 servings
- Difficulty
- MEDIUM
Ingredients
Quantities are shown as originally provided.
- 7.9 oz glutinous rice flour
- 1 Cup sugar (7 oz or 200g. Use light brown or dark brown sugar.)
- ⅙ teaspoon salt (you can omit if you don't like salt in your desserts but it's a flavor enhancer.)
- 1 inch ginger (peeled and grated. (Use the juice too.) Optional. )
- 9.3 oz coconut cream (265g.)
- 3 oz water (85g. Omit if using coconut milk. I will update with the exact quantity to substitute after testing.)
- 0.7 oz oil (20g. Use sesame oil or a neutral vegetable oil. Do NOT use olive oil. Substitute: melted butter)
- 2 eggs (beaten)
Instructions
- 1
Preheat the oven to 350F/ 177C/ 167 C fan.
- 2
Mix the dry ingredients (glutinous rice flour, sugar, salt. If adding ginger or other spices such as cinnamon, you can add it now.)
- 3
Stir in the coconut cream, water, and oil or melted butter till you don't see any flour. (The batter will be a bit lumpy, don't worry.)
- 4
Slowly fold in the beaten eggs.
- 5
Pour into an oiled 9-inch cake tin. Bake for 50 minutes or till cooked through. (The inside will look wet and underbaked, but it should have formed a cohesive translucent dough, instead of being a wet batter. Refer to the Step-by-Step for a photo of what the cooked batter looks like.)
- 6
Once baked and golden brown, remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from tin and cutting.