Song gao is a Shanghai-born dessert made with rice flour, sugar, milk, and red bean paste, topped with whole red azuki beans. It is a popular Lunar New Year treat and has been on the menu at Taipei Grand Hotel since 1952.
A popular treat to celebrate the Lunar New Year in China is a Shanghai-born dessert known as song gao. Meaning “loose cake” in Mandarin Chinese, this dessert forgoes regular wheat flour for rice flour instead, along with sugar, some form of milk, and copious amounts of red bean paste inside. Along the top of these cakes are full-sized red azuki beans, each about as big and sweet as a jelly bean.
Azuki paste is made by boiling red beans in sugar until they take on sweetness. Then, after draining the water, the beans are usually mashed into red bean paste. Some beans, however, are kept whole, often along with a few different varieties, to stick to the top of the pie batter before it goes into the oven.
Cake batter is often made quite simply. Sugar is whipped into the eggs and then various ingredients are also introduced. Such ingredients include rice flour – the sweet glutinous variety if possible, coconut milk or some other form of sweetened liquid, eggs mixed with rice flour – a sweet glutinous variety if possible, along with some milk or coconut, sugar and a dash of salt. These flavors cause song gao to be thick, sweet, and a little creamy.
The song gao batter is then poured into the circular cake pans on the center side, after the fat or parchment paper has set down, but only about one-third full. Next comes the red bean paste, then a final layer of batter. The final touch is unmashed azuki beans on top.
Song gao is one of several landmarks for the Lunar New Year celebration. Another is a similar dessert called nian gao, made with coconut milk and grated coconut as a star, rather than noodles and beans. Both cakes should bake at about 350°F (about 177°C), for about 50 minutes. To finish just simply let the cake cool and cut it like a cake.
According to some sources, China’s famed Taipei Grand Hotel has had song gao on its restaurant menu nonstop since shortly after it opened in 1952, taking the place of an old Shinto temple. Taipei is the city where the country’s former leader, Chiang Kai-shek, died in 1975. The restaurant claims his wife’s favorite dessert was song gao, which is the reason for its longevity on the menu.
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