Homemade Raspberry Powder

Look at this lusciousness!  This beautiful vivid red.  And the fragrance is unbelievably intense, tart and sweet and fruity.  What is this, you ask?  Why it's Homemade Raspberry Powder, used to add flavor and color to all kinds of pastries and other baked goods.  

You can buy this premade at bakery supply stores but it's so easy to make a home and so much more fragrant when just made.  Why not try making this super easy to make Homemade Raspberry Powder at home?

Chinese Chocolate Pastry Filling Paste 巧克力餡

It turns out that you can make all kinds of fun new and creative fillings for your Chinese pastries and buns.  I recently discovered what I think is the key to being able to do this: white bean paste.  I had not heard of white bean paste until recently, having only known its famous cousin, red bean paste 紅豆沙.

White bean paste 白豆沙 is a sweet, creamy mildly bean flavored paste of light color.  It is used to fill pastries to delicious effect.  A super added plus is that white bean paste takes on both color and flavors really well, thus allowing for all kinds of new filling flavors to be made.

We start off exploring the versatility of white bean paste by adding chocolate to it.  So exciting, cuz I love, love, love chocolate.  Our Chinese chocolate pastry filling turned out incredible: oh so chocolaty, creamy, and oozy.  A perfect hidden heart of smooth creamy chocolate!

Homemade White Bean Paste 白豆沙餡

Up until recently I had never heard of white bean paste 白豆沙.  Red bean paste 紅豆沙, yes, and how I love the flavor of it.  But never white bean paste.  It turns out that white bean paste is really quite lovely, with the same fine creamy texture of red bean paste but having a milder sweet creamy flavor that's perfect for stuffing a Chinese pastry.

In Japan white bean paste is used for many desserts and is known as 'Shiro-an.'

We needed white bean paste to make chocolate paste filling for our raspberry chocolate tang yuan 覆盆子巧克力湯圓.  So yummilicious!   And even more exciting is that we realized that white bean paste, with its mild sweet flavor and light color, can be used as a base for all kinds of innovative fillings in Chinese pastries.  

In other words: White bean paste + added flavor = exciting new flavor !

It turns out it's a cinch to make white bean paste 白豆沙 at home.  Super duper easy!  Homemade White Bean Paste 白豆沙 is soft and creamy with a mildly sweet, slightly beany flavor.  You can use the paste as is or go on to be crazy creative and experiment to discover new and exciting pastes to fill your pastries with!

Pssst...we made fruit (mango and red dragon fruit) flavored mooncakes with this white bean paste.  OMgosh so yummilicious!

Chocolate Filled Raspberry Flavored Tang Yuan 覆盆子巧克力湯圓

This little sweet bite was inspired by Valentine's Day.  It's now past that heart shaped day, I know, but there it is, the inspiration for this sweet treat was that of love and delectable devotion and the divine chocolate bonbons that go with all that.

The idea first began from a desire to have a chocolate filled tang yuan rice dumpling.  OMG, can you imagine, sooo good!  And then with that idea came the desire to surround the yummy oozing chocolate filling with something more fancy, more in tune with the rich decadence of cocoa than just plain ol’ tang yuan dough.  

After much thought I decided that the luscious rosy tartness of raspberry was up to the challenge.  I infused pure raspberry flavor into the tender chewy rice dough that surrounds the tang yuan filling.  Wowzer! 

Raspberry and chocolate, double wowzer!  Our Chocolate Filled Raspberry Flavored Tang Yuan 覆盆子巧克力湯圓 is not your ordinary tang yuan; it's a fancy 'bonbon' kinda tang yuan with an oozing rich chocolate heart wrapped tenderly in a fragrant raspberry pink infused dough.  It's out of this world fancy and delicious!