New Year Cake (年糕) and Fa Cake (Steamed Cake)

It will be Chinese new year next Monday. And I have made the two kinds of traditional new year cake and steamed cake for the new year. The first one is the traditional Chinese new year cake (年糕) that my parents make every year. I got the recipe from my parents and have been making it for several years. It will bring good luck by eating the year cake during the new year because the Chinese pronunciation of the year cake is a homonym for "every year higher and higher". It is made of glutinous rice, brown sugar, and cooked red beans. After steaming the mixture and letting it cool for days to harden, you can eat as it is or pan-fry it. Yummy!

The second one is the steamed cake. It is also called "Fa" cake. The pronunciation in Chinese and Cantonese are a homonym for "Getting richer or get promoted". It is made of rice flour, brown sugar, flour, and baking powder. The crack of the cake on the top means that the exploration and explosion of the good luck in the upcoming year. So lots of businessmen really like to eat this cake in the new year. These cakes just bring back lots of my childhood memory.

My family was not in very good economic situation back then. We did not have too much but my parents always managed to give me and my younger sister a happy new year. It was the only time of the year that we would get to eat all the candies, sweets, fruits and delicious dishes that we did not get to taste usually. And we could watch all the TV we wanted. I got all excited when my parents started to prepare to make both cakes because it meant the new year would be coming and the school would be off. The kids nowadays are much luckier in having so many material stuffs but they seem to lose the pure pleasure of enjoying something. Well, it is time for me to enjoy the year cake!