Then and Now
仙豆糕 XianDou Cake is a street food originated from Beijing, China. It has 500 years of history and were served to royal family, loved by Empress Dowager Cixi (慈禧太后). It’s brown-dotted pattern looks like tiger’s skin, so it’s also known as Tiger-skin Bobo/cake 虎皮餑餑.
During quarantine, I saw a few videos that make XianDou Cake 仙豆糕 with innovative flavor — purple yam and cheese. The purple and gold color combination attracted my attention and I want to recreate it! I wasn’t able to get Japanese sweet yam which always yields glazing purple color, so I substitute with sweet potato. Since sweet potato has natural sugar, I decrease the sugar amount recipe calls for. Matcha and red bean are both frequently used in Japanese pastry, so I combine them along with mochi following this recipe (in Chinese).
QUICK TAKEAWAYS
- outer layer dough should be moist
- mochi/sweet rice flour is extremely sticky after steaming, need to quick stir for 1+ mins after steaming, convenient for handling afterwards
- does not need oil for this cake pastry, not much sugar and oil/butter either! hooray! somehow healthier?
- pan-fried instead of oven-baked
RECIPE
Part I: Outer Layer
| Matcha Red Bean | Sweet Potato Cheese | |
| cake flour | 60g | 120g |
| corn starch | 20g | 50g |
| sugar powder | 10g | 20g |
| egg | 1 egg | ~1 egg, 75g |
| butter | 30g | 50g |
| other | matcha 4g | |
| dough texture | medium dry & wet | very wet, ended up adding more flour |
| stretchiness | easy | almost not stretchable, break apart |
| post-baking texture | dryer, more like a skin; might because I rolled it too thin | cakey! more moist, similar to pineapple cake’s outer layer texture |
Comment: Personally prefer sweet potato cheese’ outer layer texture because it’s more moist. But the other outer layer dryness could potentially because I divide the dough into too many pieces and rolled them too thin. Comparing recipe’s photo to my final cake, mine was too thin and not moist. So I will follow recipe for matcha outer layer and update!
Part II: Filling
| Mochi | Sweet Potato |
| sweet rice flour: 50g (mochiko) | sweet potato: 380g steam 30-40 mins |
| sugar: 75g | sugar: 10g |
| milk: 100g | milk: 2 tbsp/ 10g |
| NA | half & half: 2 tbsp/15g |
| NA | butter: 15g |
| Instruction: – mix and steam 5 mins when water boils – quickly mix – steam for 5 mins or till no more liquid – quickly mix for 1-2 mins or till form a sticky dough – cool for use | Instruction: – smash the steamed sweet potato, transfer in pan – medium heat, add in the rest ingredients – stir till dryer and can stick together (clean pan and spatula) |
Mochi mix after steaming for 5mins, still some liquid 
Mochi mix after steaming for 2nd 5mins, no liquid left
cut sweet potato into slices, easier to steam and mesh 
Stir till not sticky
Part III: Assemble and Pan-Fry
| Matcha Red Bean | Sweet Potato Cheese | |
| outer | 25g | 30g |
| middle | homemade red bean paste: 15g | sweet potato paste: 35g |
| inner | mochi: 10g | cheese: 5g |
- roll all layers’ ingredients into small ball
- roll out outer and middle layer into a circle
- wrap inner filling with middle layer, wrap middle layer with outer layer
- use the back to knife or other tools to shape this big balls into cuboid長方體
- heat pan, medium temperature, no oil needed yet
- add these cake pastries into pan, cook every side of the cuboid till slightly brown; if too dry, add water or oil
READY TO SERVE!
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