Tang Yuan 汤圆 / Glutinous Rice Ball

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Tang yuan is possibly one of my favourite desserts, especially the ones filled with peanuts, swimming in a bowl of hot soy milk.

The round shape of the glutinous rice balls are meant to symbolize family togetherness, and eating tangyuan brings the family harmony, happiness and luck in the new year. When we moved into our rental space last year, the sis came over and we made Tang Yuan for the last day of Chinese New Year (元宵节). We decided to make it an annual tradition and continued this year after we moved into our new BTO.

She’d pre-make the peanut filling, freeze them into small spheres and we’ll make the dough and shape them together. Our staple design is the fishy, it looks complicated but fairly straightforward once you get the steps. They’re also highly customizable with the colours and derpy faces so we tend to make the most of that!

Since it’s the year of the rabbit I made some Miffys with leftover dough! The face details were too fine for dough, so I drew them on with food colouring instead. However they don’t stick too well, so most of them faded and ended up faceless after cooking lol. I’d recommend making fine details even with dough and adhering them well to avoid any body parts falling apart haha.

Tang Yuan 汤圆 / Glutinous Rice Ball

Tangyuan are a traditional Chinese dessert made of glutinous rice shaped into balls and stuffed with filling. We fill our glutinous rice balls with peanut, and shape them into cute characters. This recipe works for plain, regular round balls as well.

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Ingredients

Glutinous Rice Balls

Instructions

Prep Filling

  1. You can either use store-bought or make your own filling. Portion out ~5g filling individually.

Make Dough

  1. In a large mixing bowl, add glutinous rice flour, potato starch and sugar.

  2. Boil water, and stream into mixing bowl with flour while mixing until dough comes together.

  3. Add butter and knead until smooth.

Assembly

  1. Portion out 12g of dough for ~5g of filling. Keep dough covered when not in use. 

  2. Encase filling with dough, ensuring there are no holes or filling will leak when cooked.

  3. If making characters, use remaining dough for design.

  4. If not cooking immediately, store in freezer.

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