Pumpkin Song Gao Sponge Rice Cake

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Pumpkin Song Gao {松糕}, or Sponge Rice Cake featuring homemade pumpkin puree, sweet rice flour, and rice flour is so yummy and satisfying. Naturally gluten-free and egg-free, this pumpkin sponge rice cake garnished with goji berries has the perfect chewiness and firm bite texture. It will be an excellent addition to your fall pumpkin/Halloween season food collection.

This Pumpkin Sponge Rice Cake is inspired by traditional Suzhou Style Sponge Rice Cake

Sponge Rice Cake featuring a blend of sweet rice flour and rice flour is a traditional dim sum in Suzhou, located in the heart of China’s Yangtze River Delta. This area is well-known for its naturally yummy Huai Yang Style food, ancient history, rich culture, and exquisite garden and waterway scenes, among other things.

Rice is a traditional staple food in this area. Clever ancient people have discovered a very unique physical property of rice four. When you fully saturate the rice flour with water to the extent that they just start to form small clumps. These loose small clumps will form a super soft sponge rice cake upon steaming.

The soft chewiness vs. firm bite texture can be adjusted by tweaking the ratio between sweet rice, also known as sticky rice flour, and rice flour. More sweet rice flour means softer and chewier. Vice versa, the more rice flour the more firm bite texture you’ll get. I usually use about 60% sweet rice flour and 40% rice flour for a more refreshingly semi-chewy texture.

How to make Pumpkin Sponge Rice Cake?

Tip No.1 is to make a pumpkin puree in advance

It is super easy to make pumpkin puree at home. I like to steam the pumpkin in a bamboo steamer. By the way, these 12-inch stacked bamboo steamers can sit nicely on top of a 14-inch cast iron wok. It is indeed my favorite steaming set.

Then use a food processor to blend it smoothly. Check it out here for a detailed guided recipe on how to make pumpkin puree easy and yummy.

Tip No.2 is to toss and fold the pumpkin puree with the sweet rice and rice flour mixture until they just start to form small lumps

I use 60% sweet rice flour and 40% rice flour for a perfectly chewy and firm bite balance. For sweet rice flour, I sometimes use an equal portion of water-milled sweet rice flour {Shui Mo Fen 水磨粉} and regular sweet rice flour {Nuo Mi Fen 糯米粉}.

When people submerge the sweet rice {sticky rice} underneath the water and then mill it into flour, the sweet rice flour becomes water-milled sweet rice flour. It is extra soft and smooth, which is the secret behind the well-known sweet rice flour dumplings and red bean mochi soup.

Add sweet rice flour, rice flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl, toss and mix well using a pair of bamboo spatulas. Then add a splash of avocado oil and pumpkin pure and toss and mix again until fully blended.

You will notice the flour blend is very saturated and have started forming small lumps.

Pros and Cons of using bamboo steamer layered with cheesecloth to steam Song Gao

The bamboo steamer has a huge cooking advantage. The bamboo lattice will allow ample steam to cook the Song Gao. With the bamboo steamer coupled with cheesecloth, the steam can come through both the top and bottom to cook the rice cake nicely.

The downside is it is tricky to separate the rice cake from the cheesecloth.

How to steam Song Gao {Sponge Rice Cake} using glassware?

If you use glassware instead, chances are you will only get the top half cooked at once. Not enough steam going through the bottom. You can, however, flip the rice cake and steam it again to cook the other half of the Nan Gua Song Gao {南瓜松糕}.

Grease the rectangle glass dish generously with coconut oil and then use a large relatively flat spoon to scoop out the saturated rice flour mixture and sprinkle loosely into the glass dish. Sprinkle one layer at a time and then build up. Do not pack the rice flour.

Once you reach the top, use a dough cutter to gently level it.

Remember to steam the sponge rice cake twice to get it fully cooked.

Add 6 cups of water to a 14-inch cast iron wok, add a lid, and bring it to a boil. After that, add the glass dish to the wok, add the lid, and steam for 20 minutes. This rectangle glass dish can snug inside a 14-inch wok nicely without needing a steaming rack.

Let the pumpkin rice cake cool down to room temperature after the initial 20 minutes of steaming. After that, remove the rice cake from the glass dish and add it to another coconut oil greased same rectangle dish. Garnish the top generously with goji berries and steam for another 20 minutes.

Enjoy a super yummy and healthy Pumpkin Sponge Rice Cake!