Ang Ku Kueh 紅龜粿

Ang Ku Kueh is a small red round oval shaped Chinese cake with soft sticky skin wrapped with sweet filling in the center.The oval shaped of the cake is designed to resemble tortoise or turtle.It's literally translate to Hokkien as Red Tortoise or Turtle Cake. It's creates a high symbolic and ritual value. Usually Chinese used Ang Ku Kueh for ritual offering during religious event,child birth and birthday. Well,to be more specific Ang Ku Kueh is a steamed glutinous rice flour cake mix with mashed sweet potato and fill with mung bean paste filling,red bean paste or crushed roasted peanut filling which original from Malaysia by Chinese and Nyonya.This is my first time making ang ku kueh with the special mould which I brought back from Malaysia 2 years ago.I used purple sweet potato to create the purple color of this cake not from food coloring at all.Although the shape of my first experiment is not really up to the expectation but the texture of the skin is soft and chewy beyond my expectation!! I used red bean paste for the filling coz I'm lazy to make the mung bean or green bean paste from scratch,plus red bean paste is my favourite!! It's really taste awesome!!!

Ingredients:
150 gm cooked purple sweet potato,peeled and mashed
375 gm glutinous rice flour(sifted)
220 ml water
50 gm sugar
3 tbsp oil
1 can red bean paste,400 ml (prefer an-pan made in Japan)
15 x banana leave (8x8 cm)


Method:
1:Steam sweet potato till cooked.Mash well while it's still hot,set aside in a large bowl.
2:Combine 40 gm of glutinous rice flour with 30 ml of water ,knead into dough.Add the dough into rolling boil water and cook until it's floats,dish out and set aside. (I skipped this step and mix all the dough and sweet potato together but now regrets so much!! )
3:Mix the remaining portion of flour with sugar and water,mashed sweet potato,oil and the cooked dough.Knead all ingredients well till all smooth and combine.Divided the dough into 15 equal portion into ball shape.
4:Flat each ball shape dough in round shape on your palm,scoop 1 tsp red bean paste on the center of the dough.Wrap the filling and roll into a ball.
5:Dust the mould with some glutinous rice flour(I used oil),press the filling ball of kueh into the mould,then knock it out.(Do not press too hard,if not the filling will burst out)
6:Place the ang ku kueh on a pieces of cut banana leaf and brushed with oil.(I omit this step since I brush mould with oil).Repeat all the same step till the dough finish.
7:Prepared water in steamer at high heat and bring it to boil.Placed ang ku kueh in the steamer rack about 2 inch each apart.(if not it will stick together when it bloom when steaming)Steam over medium heat for 10 minutes.
8:Remove and brush with some oil.(I didn't brush with oil again).Serve cold or warm as snack with tea.
I over steamed the ang ku by 5 minutes and the design of the mould on the kueh disappeared:(
don't you said the purple of this ang ku from sweet potato look awesome?
mix dough with mashed purple sweet potato

prepared ang ku kueh to steam

Note:

Scalding a small portion of the flour mixture before kneading with the rest of the mixture will make dough stickier and less likely to break apart.Moulding will be lot easier too.Also adjust the amount of the dough and filling for each ang ku to the size of the mould you used.