Assorted Glutinous Rice balls 汤圆

Every year, my husband will get the clan (children, nieces and nephew included) to make 汤圆 during 冬至. First, it is fun to make. Second, it symbolises reunion, which we treasure as not all of us are based in Singapore. This year, we have agreed to making 汤圆 together during our Christmas celebration. Before that, on 冬至， our small family of four decided to first experiment with 3 flavours of assorted 汤 圆- black sesame, peanut and nutella. And we woke up at 6am  to do this!

To be honest, the home-made 汤圆 were far from pretty. But it was still good effort from the 3 and 8 years old.

Ingredients:

- 3 cups of glutinous rice flour (some extra) 

- red and green food dye

- 1 tablespoon dollop sweetened black sesame paste 

- 1 tablespoon dollop crunchy peanut butter 

- 1tablespoon dollop of nutella 

- sugar 

- 30g butter

- 1 bunch wolfberries 

- 1 bunch red dates 

- 1 bunch dried longans 

Procedures: 

1) Mix sesame paste with softened butter and sugar. Wrap it into a tube-shape using cling wrap. Mix peanut butter with softened butter and sugar. Wrap it into a tube-shape with cling wrap. Mix nutella with soften butter. Wrap it into a tube-shape using cling wrap. Put them in the freezer for 20 minutes. Divide each filling into 8 portions. Roll into balls. 

2) Wash the wolfberries, red dates and dried longans. Boil them in 3 bowls of water with 2 tablespoons of sugar for 10 minutes. 

3) Place the glutinous rice flour into 3 separate bowls (one cup per bowl) 

4) Have 3 cups of water. Add green and red dye into one cup of water. 

5) Add the each cup of water, a little at a time, into each bowl of flour to form firm doughs (pink, green and white). Divide each colour dough into 8 portions. Roll into balls.  

6) Wrap the black sesame filling in white dough, peanut butter filling in green dough and nutella filling in pink dough. 

7) Cook them in boiling water. The 汤圆 will float when they are cooked. 

8) Scoop them into the longan soup and serve. 

At this moment, this recipe is still very experimental. I will try to improve on it and document it better in future. Look out for future posts on that!