If you love all things red beans, making these soft and chewy red bean glutinous rice cakes is a must! It is nutty, sweet, sticky, and soft that melts in your mouth. You’ll need red beans, sugar, glutinous rice flour, and your favorite milk (or just water).
First, What Are Red Beans?
If you don’t know yet, red beans are also known as adzuki beans and are popularly cooked in numerous Asian desserts and soups. It adds a soft texture and a delightful nutty taste to every dish. You can make a sweet red bean soup with sago (红豆西米露) or a crispy red bean pancake for a healthy snack.
It is commonly made into red bean paste, which you can use for cakes and baked goods like red bean paste buns and red bean bread. Not only is it delicious, but it is a nutritious ingredient packed with vitamins and minerals. It eliminates coldness in the body, promotes blood circulation, gets rid of toxins, and reduces swelling, among its many health benefits.
How Red Beans Are Made Into Glutinous Rice Cakes
In this recipe, I use red beans to make rectangular glutinous rice cakes. It is a variety of sticky rice cakes and a popular Chinese dessert. In order to do that, the steamed red beans are mixed with a spoonful of sugar, glutinous rice flour, and milk.
This mixture is placed in a greased mold and steamed for only 15 minutes. Once it is cooked, chill it in the fridge for 2 hours to make it firm enough to cut into your desired shape. The glutinous rice flour gives it a soft and sticky texture, while the red beans impart nutty flavors.
Milk improves the overall taste and texture, making it even creamier and richer. You can adjust the sugar according to your sweetness preference. It is gluten-free and can be made completely plant-based with dairy-free milk – simply a dessert everyone can enjoy!
Why Use Glutinous Rice Flour?
Despite its name, glutinous rice flour is actually gluten-free. The term ‘glutinous’ only refers to its sticky and chewy textures after cooking, which are the textures we are trying to create for this cake. Keep in mind this type of flour is different from rice flour.
Glutinous rice flour is made from glutinous rice or sticky rice, whereas rice flour is made from long or medium-grain white rice, such as japonica, sinandomeng, angelica, or indica. Rice flour can only make a slightly chewy texture.
It won’t produce a sticky texture like glutinous rice flour, so it cannot be used interchangeably for this cake. Learn more about their differences by reading my in-depth guide, Rice Flour Vs Glutinous Rice Flour. If you have extra glutinous rice flour, use it to make Homemade Ham Sui Gok 咸水角 (Fried Glutinous Rice Dumplings) or Festive Snow Skin Mooncakes.
Ingredient Alternatives And Recipe Tips
There are a few ways to customize the recipe with the best ingredient alternatives and cooking techniques. Although the main ingredients are red beans and glutinous rice flour, I listed down a few suggestions on the closest replacements in case you don’t have them on hand. Quickly read these tips before starting with the recipe steps.
- Red beans: Red beans or adzuki beans are typically available in Asian stores, international sections of grocery stores, and online markets like Amazon. However, if you can’t find this, replace it with red kidney beans. It is similar to red beans in taste and texture. You will also need to soak the kidney beans before boiling them.
- Glutinous rice flour: This special ingredient is commonly found in Asian supermarkets and online stores like Amazon. This is a preferred ingredient for sticky rice cakes for its sticky texture and slightly sweet and milky-like taste. If you are left with no choice but to replace this, I suggest swapping it with arrowroot flour, sorghum flour, almond flour, cornstarch, or potato starch. However, these won’t produce the same sticky texture as glutinous rice flour. So, I highly suggest getting glutinous rice flour in advance for the perfect sticky rice cake.
- Sugar: Sugar adds a hint of sweetness. I used white sugar to retain the white base of the cake. You can also use brown sugar, coconut sugar, cane sugar, or muscovado, but it will add a hint of brown to the color.
- Milk (or water): Make it even creamier and richer with milk. However, water is fine as well but it won’t make the texture and flavor as creamy as milk. You can use regular milk or any plant-based milk for a vegan-friendly version. If you want a coconutty taste, coconut milk works as well.
- Topping: Adding toppings is optional but highly recommended. I sprinkled some sugar and topped it with mint leaves. You can also top it with white or black sesame seeds, crushed nuts, or red bean paste.
- Cooking method: First, the beans are soaked to make it faster to cook when steamed. So, make sure you don’t skip the soaking step. To cook the beans, you will need a steamer to do it. If you don’t have a steamer, you can still steam with 5 DIY methods: pan with steamer rack, microwave, pan with sieve, rice cooker, and instant pot.
The Ingredients And Kitchenware To Prepare
The kitchen items are pretty basic, just your steamer, mixing bowls for soaking and mixing, and a knife and chopping board. For your cake mold, I do recommend greasing it first with butter or oil to make it easier to pop it out of the mold after steaming. As for the ingredients, here’s what you need to prepare:
- 500g of red beans
- 1 tbsp of sugar
- 250g of glutinous rice flour
- 250ml of milk (or water)
- Toppings (mint leaves or a sprinkle of sugar)
Steps On How To Make Red Bean Glutinous Rice Cakes
The recipe steps call for soaking, steaming, mixing, and chilling. The steps that may take some time of waiting are steaming and refrigerating the red beans. Refer to my 30-second tutorial video on Instagram or TikTok to learn more.
- Soak the red beans for two hours.
- Then, drain the water and steam the beans for 30 minutes. After steaming, it should be soft enough to mash between your fingers.
- In a mixing bowl, add the steamed beans and stir in a spoonful of sugar, glutinous rice flour, and milk. Mix well.
- Take your mold and grease it with oil or butter.
- Pour the mixture into the greased mold and flatten the surface.
- Prepare a steamer with water.
- Once the water boils, steam for 15 minutes.
- Next, cover it with plastic wrap and chill it in the fridge for 2 hours until it firms up. It should be firm enough to cut it into smaller pieces.
- Remove the cake from the mold and cut it into your desired shape. For me, I cut it into 1-inch wide rectangular cakes.
- Top it with a sprinkle of sugar and mint leaves for decoration.
- Serve this for a light snack after a meal! If you enjoyed this recipe, make these easy cake recipes as well: Chinese Sachima Soft Flour Pastry Cake (沙琪瑪), Dim Sum Classic Chinese Turnip Cake (Lo Bak Go), and Steamed Chinese Taro Cake (Yam Cake).
Red Bean Rice Cakes (Gluten-Free, Plant-Based)
Ingredients
- 500 g of red beans
- 1 tbsp of sugar
- 250 g of glutinous rice flour
- 250 ml of milk or water
- Toppings mint leaves or a sprinkle of sugar
Instructions
- Soak the red beans for two hours.
- Then, drain the water and steam the beans for 30 minutes. After steaming, it should be soft enough to mash between your fingers.
- In a mixing bowl, add the steamed beans and stir in a spoonful of sugar, glutinous rice flour, and milk. Mix well.
- Take your mold and grease it with oil or butter.
- Pour the mixture into the greased mold and flatten the surface.
- Prepare a steamer with water.
- Once the water boils, steam for 15 minutes.
- Next, cover it with plastic wrap and chill it in the fridge for 2 hours until it firms up. It should be firm enough to cut it into smaller pieces.
- Remove the cake from the mold and cut it into your desired shape. For me, I cut it into 1-inch wide rectangular cakes.
- Top it with a sprinkle of sugar and mint leaves for decoration.
