recipe for red bean cake

[delhigirl]

Hi all. I need some help locating a good recipe for red bean cake. One of my Chinese colleagues recently got a red bean cake from home that was absolutely amazing. I'm longing to give it a try but can't get a good recipe. I did ask said colleague but his wife didn't want to part with the recipe.

I tried googling but the recipes that turned up weren't satisfactory. The cake I had was "cakey" with a light, airy texture but definitely still a cake, while the recipes I've found seem to be more jelly-like requiring red bean paste, gelatine, and sugar.

Do you have any favorite recipe you could share? How do YOU make red bean cake at home?

[hzrt8w]

Hi all. I need some help locating a good recipe for red bean cake. One of  my Chinese colleagues recently got a red bean cake from home that was absolutely amazing. I'm longing to give it a try but can't get a good recipe.

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It is hard to figure out what "kind" of red bean cake you had, especially that was a home-made production... anything goes. Can you describe it more? Was it baked? Flour-based pastry? Steamed? Sticky-rice flour based sweet cake? What does it look like? Does it contain red bean and something else? What kind of cake?

The popular "moon cake" can be a red bean cake too.

[delhigirl]

well, there was a thin layer of light cake with a layer of red bean paste. I can't tell if the cake was steamed. What ought a steamed cake to look like? Sorry if that's too basic a question, I just don't know if I've ever had steamed cake.

I feel like it couldn't have been rice-based though. It didn't have a sticky or glutinous texture.

[sanrensho]

Was it round, was it square, did it have an imprint? Was it a layer cake or shaped like a bun? Was it a traditional dessert or a modern dessert?

[delhigirl]

I can't recognize traditional vs modern. I don't know enough about Chinese deserts to be able to discern the difference. Or maybe I can but I don't know that I can.

Wouldn't the red bean paste be traditional? But is flour-based pastry traditional as well?

It was round...no imprint. Uh...a layer cake. This is a lot harder than it looks.

No wonder I can't find a recipe.

hzrt8w do you mean that there isn't a definitive "Red bean cake" recipe and it could mean any number of things?

[herbacidal]

Red bean is used in so many different ways.

Red bean cake sort of narrows down the options to a few dozen choices.

Sort of like how rice cake and/or dumpling can be used to describe any number of different food items depending on the speaker's background, frame of reference, etc.

English language terms for Chinese food items are just a start to figuring out the particulars. That's probably true for other cuisines as well, in varying degrees.

A picture of the item would be best, or perhaps the name and location of the bakery/provider.