You know what the problem with Too Cute Tuesday has been lately? We’ve been getting together and crafting then I start the blog posts that stay in ‘draft’ form. Bummer! I did know that I had to write about this week’s craft though.
So little known fact: I love Chinese baked goods. They are so unlike cakes and cookies and usually involve a bit of a salty/savory element I find lacking in most other sweets. My favorite thing ever is the sesame balls. The outside is crispy with a slight fried layer and sesame seeds while the inside is doughy and filled with a sweet bean paste. I usually pick up a half dozen every time I’m in Chinatown. They are best fresh otherwise I’d stock up.
For a long time, I thought they may be difficult to make these, but at a health food store a few months ago, I picked up rice flour and bean paste and in my cupboard it sat… until Tuesday.
After finding the recipe at About.com and seeing they only took 30 minutes, I thought we’d give it a shot. Here’s the link: http://chinesefood.about.com/od/desserts/r/sesameseedballs.htm
Materials:
Rice flour
Water
Sugar
Bean paste (you can make it too)
Cooking Oil
In short, our balls weren’t quite as round and pretty as the ones above in the professional shot (which you can buy a poster of here) but were still quite tasty. I ended up having to mix more sugar in my red bean paste than expected to make the filling a bit less tangy and at one point, the oil we were frying them in got too hot, cooking the outside and leaving the inside of a couple balls not quite cooked all the way through. Once we lowered the temperature and adjusted the filling to be sweeter, we had quite the tasty treats.
Thanks to Amy and Dorrie for their cooking help. I’ll post photos tomorrow when I’m next at my office (where I left my digital camera card reader unfortunately). It just goes to show you that sometimes you really can do it yourself. If only things were easier than we thought more often in life!
Aren’t we crafty… with dumpling skills!
