This is absolutely one of my favourite classic Cantonese desserts! The most important part of this recipe is not the crunchy and sweet toppings, but the sweet broth that you cook the dumplings in. Instead of using plain water, I add ginger and brown sugar to the broth, which gives a wonderful flavour to the dumplings. Be sure not to skip this part!
Makes about 40 dumplings
Ingredients for dumplings:
300 g glutenous rice flour
300 ml warm water
Ingredients for sweet broth:
500 ml water
3 slices of ginger, lightly pounded
3 tbsp brown sugar
* Makes about two cups of broth
Ingredients for topping:
1/8 cup toasted sesame seeds
1/8 cup unsalted, roasted peanuts, roughly crushed
1/8 cup shredded coconut
1/8 cup caster sugar
Recipe Preparation
Put all topping ingredients in a small bowl and mix well. Set aside.
Pour about 1/3 of the flour into a medium metal tray. Add warm water slowly, using a fork to mix flour and water together. Continue adding flour and water to the mix until the lumps become less dry.
Use your hands to work the mixture into a soft dough. There should be no more dry lumps, and the dough should be elastic and very soft, but not sticky.
Prepare a clean, dry wooden or plastic chopping board. Tear off a thumb-sized piece of dough and roll it in your palm to form a small ball. Repeat for the remaining dough and line the balls up on the board.
Bring the 500 ml of water to a boil in a small saucepan and then add ginger slices and sugar. Once the sugar is dissolved, add dumplings, cooking in batches. When the dumplings are ready, they will float to the surface.
Remove cooked dumplings with a skimmer and serve on a shallow dish. Sprinkle topping mixture over dumplings and serve immediately.
If you are not cooking all the dumplings, prepare a shallow tray and line it with one layer of plastic film. Put the dumplings on the tray with some space between them so that they don’t stick together. Loosely cover the tray with another layer of plastic film and put it in the freezer, lying flat, until dumplings are completely frozen, about 2-3 hours. Transfer them into a Ziploc bag for long-term storage. They can be kept frozen for up to 3 months.
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