Chinese Laughing Dumplings

Chinese Laughing Dumplings or 笑口棗，is another traditional CNY snack and it is also the second item in my CNY cookout. As with all CNY snacks, every snack has a particular auspicious meaning to it. For this, eating one of these will set you laughing all the time, as the Chinese said 食過笑口棗，笑口常開！
This is an easy to do snack and will be better if you can DIY instead of buying from the stores as the store-bought ones are usually deep fried with "thousand years" oil, which is not so healthy.
It is pretty interesting to see how the dumpling start to laugh/smile at you while being deep fried in the hot oil. Ha! Ha! It's all due to the chemistry of baking powder. Would be nuts to think that a dough ball will laugh/smile at you!
Anyway, have a happy time doing the laughing dumplings!



Ingredients: (18 pieces)
90g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
40g sugar
1.5 tsp melted shortening (I used Crisco)
3 tbsp cold water
White sesame seeds for coating

Method:
1. Sieve flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Stir in sugar.
2. Add in the melted shortening and water, mix to form a soft dough.
3. Rest dough for 30 minutes.
4. Divide dough into 10g pieces and shape it into round balls.
5. Wet the round dough balls with water and coat it with white sesame seeds.
6. Deep fry coated dough balls in oil, turning the dumplings with a ladle till golden brown.
7. Use absorbent kitchen paper towel to get rid of excess oil.
8. Cool before storing in an air-tight container.

Notes:
1. Oil should not be too hot while you slide in the dough balls, otherwise the sesame seeds will get all burnt out. Increase the heat after you have slided in the dough balls. An easy snack to do but you have to control of the heat while deep frying. Would advise you to fry 2 at time until you get the rhythm of the heat control.
2. If you like the dumplings to be of larger size, you can increase the dough balls to 13g each.
3. Floured your hands if you find the dough a little sticky to handle.