Osmanthus Red Bean Pudding

Hi! After a long break dealing with things outside the cyberworld, I'm back!!! Hope I haven't kept you all waiting for too long.

Also, please give me some time to reply to all the queries in the various posts.

Today, I'm blogging about this delicious traditional Chinese snack, Osmanthus Red Bean Pudding (桂花紅豆糕). The red bean layer is robustly filled with big red beans and the osmanthus layer is definitely fragrant. Easy to do and the final result is a eye-candy.

Pretty, fragrant and delicious!


Big red beans.
See the size compared to green beans.


Ingredients:
Red bean layer:
280g red beans
400ml red bean water
60g rock sugar
30g - 40g caster sugar
20g gelatin sheet (soaked till soft)
8g agar agar stripes

Method:
1. Soak red beans overnight. Cook till soft. Drain and reserve 400ml red bean water for use later.
2. Wash and cut agar agar stripes into small pieces and soak in water till soft.
3. Add rock sugar, caster sugar and soften agar agar into red bean water and cook till agar agar dissolved. Add in the soften gelatin and drained red beans, stir to mix well. Cool the whole pot of mixture in cold water.
4. Pour cooled mixture into a 15cm x 15cm x 6cm tray that is rinsed in cold water.
5. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before topping it with the osmanthus layer.

Osmanthus layer:
1.5 tbsp sweet osmanthus
300ml water
80g rock sugar
25g - 30g caster sugar
15g gelatin sheet (soaked till soft)

Method:
1. Cook osmanthus with rock sugar and caster sugar in 300ml water till sugars dissolved and the aroma from the osmanthus is released.
2. Stir in the soften gelatin till well mixed. Leave aside to cool.
3. Pour cooled osmanthus mixture onto the chilled red bean layer and refrigerate till set.

Reference: Yahoo knowledge base