Sugar Tang Yuan Recipe (汤 圆)

Tang Yuan (汤 圆) is a common sight every year to mark dong zhi (冬至), the start of winter.

Tang Yuan is a recipe I've been meaning to write for a while. It has the simplest steps: mix glutinous rice flour and water to form a dough, and stick a piece of sugar into each ball of dough. But like any traditional recipe, I had a hard time getting the proportion down. Recipes handed down from generation-to-generation give a rough proportion of ingredients by whichever bowls lying around, and rely on the appearance and texture of the mixture to add a little more water, or a little more flour. 

Because I know how much all bakers love hearing "add until it feels just right", I knew I had to get the exact measurement of the flour:water ratio. And I don't think starting a recipe with "Buy this white porcelain bowl with blue dragons and measure water almost up to the third blue line" would win me much favours. But finally, I have it.

Sugar Tang Yuan (汤 圆) Recipe

Makes 20-30 Tang Yuan

Ingredients
75g + 25g (3/4 cup) Glutinous Rice Flour (Not Rice Flour)
90ml (1/3 cup + 2 tsp)Water
冰片糖, (a particular type of sugar found in Asian marts - picture below)
Sliced ginger, to boil with the soup (optional). Adjust to taste.
Pandan leaves, to boil with the soup (optional). Adjust to taste.

"Brown Sugar In Pieces". It's brown sugar that comes in slabs

1) Chop up the sugar into rough cubes, about 1/2 cm in length. One for each tang yuan.

2)On a large plate or bowl, add 75g of glutinous rice flour, followed by the water.

2) Mix the water into the flour with a spoon.

3) When incorporated, add in the other 25g of flour.

This is a little too dry. Dab a little water into the mixture and incorprorate.

4)Adjust the dough with a little more flour or sugar as needed. If it's too sticky, add a little more flour. If you can't kneed the dough into a ball without it cracking, add more water.

5)Take a pinch of the dough and flatten it against your palm. Add a piece of sugar and wrap well. Be careful of the corners of the sugar cube. If the skin looks too thin, it might tear during boiling.

6) Boil slices of ginger, pandan leaves and any excess sugar cubes in a (preferably transparent) pot. When a rolling boil forms, add the tang yuan. When the tang yuan floats up, the interior sugar would have just started melting. Continue to boil for 1 more minute to reach the end-goal of a molten interior of just-melted sugar.

7) Be proud of your first, famous homemade sugar tang yuan!

Variation
Grounded peanut is a common variation, and is one which you can buy easily at Asian marts. If you prefer to make the grounded peanuts variety at home, you will need grounded peanuts, sugar and unsalted butter. (You can find several recipes online easily). Stay away from blogs that list peanut butter in lieu of unsalted butter , as peanut butter is usually salted and would make the filling tastes weird. Stick with recipes that use unsalted butter please.