紅棗蓮子桂圓年糕 - 我做的年菜 (五) Sweet rice cake with red dates, lotus seeds and longan - One of the dishes I made for celebrating the new year (5)

While browsing the various products in the "grains" section at the Welcome Supermarket, I noticed a recipe printed on the package of a brand of glutinous rice flour. It looked so easy to make the sweet rice cake. So I bought a package of the glutinous rice flour and came home to start making the rice cake. I dissolved 400 grams of brown sugar in 2 cups of boiling water. After the sugar solution cooled down a bit, I mixed 500 grams of the glutinous rice flour into it. I also added some soaked red dates (紅棗),some soaked lotus seeds (蓮子) and some longan (桂圓). I put the mixture in an oiled pan and steamed it in an electric rice cooker for an hour. The sweet rice cake turned out very delicious, even though the lotus seeds were a little too tough and the seeded red dates still had some seed fragments. Next time, I will pick a better brand of red dates. I will definitely cook the lotus seeds until they become very soft, before adding them to the rice mixture. Or I will use the candied lotus seeds (糖蓮子), instead.