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Add a yummy dessert for the holidays or an after-meal snack with Chinese pumpkin cake (南瓜饼). It’s a delicious and healthy dessert that is soft and chewy with a sweet red bean paste filling.
This Chinese dessert is gluten-free and vegan-friendly, the perfect dessert for everyone!
What You’ll Love About Chinese Pumpkin Cake
If you’re a mochi lover, you must try Chinese pumpkin cake, also known as Nan Gua Bing. It is a sweet and chewy dessert or snack made from steamed pumpkin, sugar, glutinous rice flour, and cornstarch.
Its center is a pillow of sweet and soft red bean paste and its top is an inserted celery stalk to make it look like a green pumpkin stem.
What’s not to love about this Chinese dessert? It is a healthy dessert thanks to the pumpkin base. Pumpkins are rich in vitamin A, low in calories, and high in fiber, to name a few.
Plus, it is gluten-free and plant-based, so it is suitable for vegans and those with gluten sensitivities.
You can make it sugar-free by omitting the sugar from the recipe. Lastly, it is one of the easiest recipes since it only calls for steaming and creating the little pumpkins. This recipe can be done in 30 minutes or less, depending on the steaming time and how much dough you will make.
Key Ingredients In Making Chinese Pumpkin Cake
The 3 key ingredients needed for this recipe are pumpkin, glutinous rice flour, and red bean paste. Each ingredient has a crucial role to play in the recipe. Here are some things you should know first about each ingredient.
Pumpkin (南瓜)
I suggest using raw pumpkin (Nan Gua in Chinese) with the skin peeled off if you prefer fresh ingredients. If you want to lessen the cooking time, canned or frozen pre-cut pumpkin is also an excellent option. You can use red kuri squash, sugar pumpkin, or kabocha pumpkin to have its natural sweetness.
The right pumpkin should be solid to the touch. It should not have soft spots or cracked areas. Moreover, it should have a deep and hollow sound when tapped.
Glutinous Rice Flour (糯米粉)
Glutinous rice flour is the key to making the pumpkin cake chewy and sticky. It is also called sweet rice flour or sweet rice powder. It is made from milled dehydrated long or short-grain sticky rice.
Note that glutinous rice flour differs from white or brown rice flour. Please refer to my guide on the difference between Rice Flour and Glutinous Rice Flour for a more detailed understanding.
So, make sure you get the one that says “glutinous.” It is worth mentioning that the amount of glutinous rice flour may vary depending on the type of pumpkin used and its moisture content.
Red Bean Paste (红豆沙)
Red bean paste is also called red bean jam. It is made from red beans by mashing and grinding them. Then, sugar is added to the paste to make it sweeter.
It is a common filling used for Asian desserts. You can buy red bean paste at your local Asian supermarket or in the international section of a grocery store. If you can’t find red bean paste, you can use white bean paste as its closest alternative.
Essential Tips For Chinese Pumpkin Cake
After learning about the 3 main ingredients, I recommend having a quick read on my essential tips when making Chinese pumpkin cake. Listed below are some suggestions when it comes to alterations, cooking methods, storage, and substitutions.
- Eat while freshly cooked: As with most desserts made with glutinous rice flour, it is best to consume the dessert as soon as possible. Although it is typically fine to cool and store in the fridge, the texture will become harder and lessen its sticky appeal.
- Reheat after storage: If taken out of the fridge after storage, I recommend reheating it by pan-frying, steaming, or heating it in the microwave.
- Cooking method: In my recipe, I simply steamed the pumpkin cake for 20 minutes. However, if you want it crispy on the outside, you can pan-fry, air-fry, or deep-fry it. You can also coat it with panko breadcrumbs before frying if you want it even crispier and golden on the outside.
- Change the filling: Make it fun and diverse by adding different fillings. Aside from red bean paste, you can use cheese, brown sugar candied walnuts, matcha bean paste, fresh fruit, and mung bean paste.
- Finishing touches: As a final touch, decorate the pumpkin cake with celery stalks to make it look like a real pumpkin. You are free to skip this part from the recipe since this is basically optional for decoration purposes and will only have a minimal difference in taste. Instead, simply sprinkle some sugar or sesame seeds on top.
- Serving suggestions: Serve this dessert at the end of a meal or as a sweet snack for any time of the day. It is the perfect dessert for a holiday or festival event.
- Ingredient substitutes: Sugar is needed if you want to make it sweeter. You can use white sugar, brown sugar, muscovado, or coconut sugar. However, you can leave this out if you prefer to lessen the amount of sugar. Another ingredient that you can substitute is cornstarch. If you don’t have cornstarch, substitute it with 2 tbsp of tapioca flour or 1 tbsp of potato starch for every 1 tbsp of cornstarch.
Everything You Need To Make Chinese Pumpkin Cake
Now that you know what this recipe entails, you can start preparing what you need to create Chinese pumpkin cake. The kitchen items are basically for steaming and mixing the ingredients. Here’s a complete list of what you need.
Kitchen Items
- Steamer (If you don‘t have a steamer, you can improvise using a pan or pot with a lid, a steam-proof bowl, and a steamer stand)
- Fork(or a potato masher to mash the pumpkin)
- Mixing bowl (to mix the dough)
- Toothpick (or any utensil that can create the pumpkin curves)
Ingredients
- 200g pumpkin
- 20g sugar
- 200g glutinous rice flour
- 30g cornstarch
- 20g red bean paste
- Short celery stalks
Recipe Steps To Make Chinese Pumpkin Cake
Got everything you need? Great! In my recipe, you only need to follow these simple steps:
- Steam and mash the pumpkin with sugar.
- Mix the glutinous rice flour and cornstarch to make the dough.
- Create the pumpkin cake with red bean paste.
- Steam the decorated pumpkin cake for 20 minutes.
It’s that simple. You can watch how I make it through my short video guides on Instagram and Tiktok.
Recipe Instructions:
If using a fresh pumpkin, remove the skin and cut it into small pieces. (Cutting it into small pieces will make it easier to mash and faster to steam rather than bigger or whole pieces.)
Wash and clean the pumpkin.
Steam the pumpkin until it is soft enough to mash with a fork.
Then, mash the pumpkin using a fork and mix in the sugar to create a smooth puree.(The sugar helps bring out the moisture. However, if you think the pumpkin is too dry, you can add a little bit of water to make it more moist. Add 1 tablespoon of water at a time until you get the desired moisture.)
After mashing, mix in the glutinous rice flour and cornstarch to form a dough. (I suggest adding the glutinous rice flour and cornstarch gradually since the pumpkin moisture may vary depending on what you are using. Generally, the dough is sticky to touch at first, but then it should become smooth to the touch without sticking to your hands.)
- Once you form a whole circular dough, take a small portion and make a flat circle by rolling it into a small ball and flattening it.(I recommend doing this against a non-stick work surface, such as a baking tray.)
- Then, place the red bean paste at the center and wrap it to form a circle.(It is best if the filling is also rolled into a small ball to make it easier to create a round ball with the dough.)
- Seal the dough by pinching the edges.
- Next, form a ball by rolling it between your hands.
- When you have a round ball, create pumpkin-like curves using a toothpick or a fork.
- Decorate the top of the pumpkin cake with short green celery stalks.
Lastly, place it back in the steamer with boiled water and steam on high heat for 20 minutes.
Enjoy the sweet and soft little pumpkins at any time of the day!
Yummy Chinese Pumpkin Cake
Equipment
- Steamer (If you don't have a steamer, you can improvise using a pan or pot with a lid, a steam-proof bowl, and a steamer stand)
- Fork(or a potato masher to mash the pumpkin)
- Mixing bowl (to mix the dough)
- Toothpick (or any utensil that can create the pumpkin curves)
Ingredients
- 200 g pumpkin
- 20 g sugar
- 200 g glutinous rice flour
- 30 g cornstarch
- 20 g red bean paste
- Short celery stalks
Instructions
- If using fresh pumpkin, remove the skin and cut it into small pieces. (Cutting it into small pieces will make it easier to mash and faster to steam rather than bigger or whole pieces.)
- Wash and clean the pumpkin.
- Steam the pumpkin until it is soft enough to mash with a fork.
- Then, mash the pumpkin using a fork and mix in the sugar to create a smooth puree.(The sugar helps bring out the moisture. However, if you think the pumpkin is too dry, you can add a little bit of water to make it more moist. Add 1 tablespoon of water at a time until you get the desired moisture.)
- After mashing, mix in the glutinous rice flour and cornstarch to form a dough. (I suggest adding the glutinous rice flour and cornstarch gradually since the pumpkin moisture may vary depending on what you are using. Generally, the dough is sticky to touch at first, but then it should become smooth to the touch without sticking to your hands.)
- Once you form a whole circular dough, take a small portion and make a flat circle by rolling it into a small ball and flattening it.(I recommend doing this against a non-stick work surface, such as a baking tray.)
- Then, place the red bean paste at the center and wrap it to form a circle.(It is best if the filling is also rolled into a small ball to make it easier to create a round ball with the dough.)
- Seal the dough by pinching the edges.
- Next, form a ball by rolling it between your hands.
- When you have a round ball, create pumpkin-like curves using a toothpick or a fork.
- Decorate the top of the pumpkin cake with short green celery stalks.
- Lastly, place it back in the steamer with boiled water and steam on high heat for 20 minutes.
- Enjoy the sweet and soft little pumpkins at any time of the day!
