Sweet Rice Sesame Balls

Traditionally, Chinese people eat this dessert on the 15th day of Chinese New Year, which is called the "Chinese Lantern Festival". This is the last day of the Chinese New Year celebration, which means, the last food event to wrap up Chinese New Year. Symbolically, we want to end the celebration on a sweet note, ergo, these delicious mochi-like treats! There are two kinds of Sweet Rice Sesame Balls. One kind, you make a dough, then wrap the filling to make a ball. The other kind, which happens to be my favorite, you make the filling, then "Roll" the filling in Sweet Rice Powder to get the filling wrapped with layers of Sweet Rice Powder. Because of the way it's made, the texture of the outside skin is very light, but still chewy! And guess what? Kids love making it as well!! Great dessert to eat on Chinese Lantern Festival, or....like me, eat it whenever you feel like it!

Ingredients : (Makes 15-20 balls)

Sesame : 120g Coconut oil or Pork Fat : 45g Sugar : 75 g Peanut Butter : 40g Glutinous Rice Flour to coat the sesame filling : 8 oz (½ bag) Cold Water : Big Bowl

Recipe :

1. Blend Sesame and Sugar until finely ground, and can see some of the sesame oil being released.

2. Blend in Peanut butter (optional), and Sugar until smooth and creamy.

3. Put the mixture (the flilling) into the fridge for at least 1 hour, so the mixture becomes more solid and are easy to form a ball.

4. Scoop 2 tsp filling and form a ball. Place on a plate with parchment paper.

5. Freeze all the sesame balls for at least 1 hour. ( Freeze for 2 hours+ for best results.)

** You can make the fillings to this point ahead of time, and just keep them in the freezer till you want to eat them.**

6. In a big wide bowl, put in the Rice Flour. In another big bowl, put in lots of cold water. (Water needs to be deep enought to submerge all the sesame balls on a strainer)

7. Take the sesame balls out of the freezer, roll 1-5 at a time (depends on how wide the bowl is, and also how skillful you are) in the Rice Flour. Once all the Sesame Balls are evenly coated with Rice Flour, put them on a strainer.

8. Dip the strainer with the Sesame Balls in the water, make sure all the Sesame Balls are completely submerged for 3 seconds. Take out and shake off the excess water.

9. Put the Sesame Balls back in the Rice Flour Bowl and roll till evenly coated.

10. Repeat 8 and 9 for 8-10 times, depends on how thick you'd like the skin to be.

**You can also freeze them at this point, till you want to eat them.**

11. Boil a big pot of water, put your Sesame Balls in once the water is boiled. Don't crowd the pot! The Sesame Balls will float to the top and looks fluffy when ready!

This is the Glutinous Rice Flour that I use:

*Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of my own Sweet Rice Sesame Balls. I found this photo online to show you how it supposed to look like. I promise to replace with my own image soon!