Nian Gao 传统年糕 (Chinese steamed New Year sticky cake)

Since my 2 sisters and sister-in-law has no interest in baking and cooking, thus I have a big responsibility to learn from my mum for all her traditional Chinese cooking especially Hokkian dishes. Nian Gao (Chinese steamed New Year sticky cake) is one of the cake that I learnt from my mum for this Chinese New Year and this is a cake that must have during CNY. I would like to keep this recipe in my blog here, so you can try out if you have interested on it(so far, I have not seen any blogger that I knew doing this cake, tedious to make right?)

Why Chinese eat Nian Gao during CNY?
My mum told me that Nian Gao is traditionally fed to the Chinese Kitchen God, so that he will give a favorable report on the family's behavior throughout the previous year when he returns to heaven.

A lot of recipes out there required very minimum steaming time(less than an hour), adding brown sugar to make the nice colour. But my mum'recipe will test your patient, because it requires 5 hours steaming time, the process of caramelization makes the Nian Gao with nice brown colour and full of glutinuous rice fragrant. The best part is this Nian Gao can be kept in the fridge up to 6 months even no preservative is added..

Nian Gao (Chinese steamed New Year sticky cake)-makes 3 cakes

Glutinous Rice flour 500g
Water 500ml
Sugar 600g
Cooking oil 2tbsp
Banana leaves - soften it by blanched in hot water

steaming bowls- I can't find the right bowl, thus I use empty can from pineapple cans.

1. Line banana leaves on the steaming bowl.
2. Place the glutinous rice flour in a large bowl, mix in sugar (500g), oil and water. Stir the mixture till sugar dissolved.
3. In another pot, cook the balance sugar (100g) till became golden syrup.
4. Pour golden syrup into flour mixture, and the syrup will form into curd, don’t worry, continue stir until syrup dissolved in the mixture (Be careful when you pour the syrup, it will spill !)
5. Strain the mixture and pour the mixture in steaming bowl.
6. Steam cake over high flame for 1 hour, and turn to low flame for 4 hours. Make sure the water does not dry up, refill hot water from time to time.

Thanks to Bakeling helping me to translate this recipe in Chinese.

传统年糕制法：

材料：
糯米粉 500 克（g）
水 500 毫升（ml）
糖 600 克（ 分开 500克 , 100克）
食油 2 汤匙
香蕉叶

方法：
1. 将香蕉叶垫在蒸的容器里。
2. 在糯米粉放进一个大碗内 ，然后加500 克的糖，食油和水搅拌均匀，直到所有糖溶解。
3. 把另外100克的糖放在另一个锅煮成金黄色的糖浆（syrup）。
4. 再将糖浆倒入第2项的面糊内搅动，当倒进糖浆时，糖浆将会凝固在面糊里成块状，我们必须一直将搅动，直到所有的糖浆和面糊混合成一体为止。
5. 把第4项的面糊用筛子过滤，然后倒进蒸碗内，再放进大锅里蒸熟。
6. 用大火蒸煮1个小时后，再改用小火，继续蒸4个小时。期间要不停加入热水。

With this lovely bite of Nian Gao, I wish you all "年年高升" (symbolism of raising oneself higher in each coming year ) !!