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!
First things first, we fancied up the original tang yuan dough, which is usually just glutinous rice flour 糯米粉 and water. To this we added powdered raspberry powder, giving our dough a lovely rosy color and an intensely fragrant raspberry flavor. To balance the tartness and to give the dough ‘more’ we added a bit of powdered sugar.
Raspberry powder can be bought in baking supply stores or you can make it at home very easily like we did by using freeze dried raspberries. Check out our post on Homemade Raspberry Powder!
Super Tip: By using different natural flavor powders, for example strawberry, matcha, sweet potato, mango, chocolate powder, etc., you can make all kind of flavors of tang yuan dough. So much to explore!
To the flour mixture boiling water is added and mixed in as much as possible. This will gelantinize the starch in the flour, making the dough smooth and elastic. Then more room temp water is added and all is kneaded until a smooth, soft, and just slightly sticky dough ball is formed.
The raspberry tang yuan dough is ready just like that and it smells fantastically berryish already! Be sure to keep it wrapped up while preparing the filling to keep it from drying out.
On to the chocolate filling!
Here is our chocolate tang yuan filling already rolled and prepared. An interesting discovery I made in research for this tang yuan is that the base of Chinese pastry chocolate filling was Chinese white bean paste 白豆沙. I had never heard of white bean paste until recently!
Made from white beans like butter bean or lima beans, the white bean paste is mildly nutty, buttery and importantly, white in color. Thus this paste can easily incorporate colors and additional flavors! So if you see Chinese pastry stuffed with fillings of new and funky colors and flavors, you’ll know that it’s probably based on white bean paste. I can't wait to experiment more with white bean paste!
It’s easy to make your own White Bean Paste at home (click links to check out our recipes). And then add chocolate to it and make your own Chocolate White Bean Paste Filling to stuff your pastries with!
It’s time to wrap some tang yuan! Make sure the dough and filling is covered as you work so that everything doesn’t dry out.
Weigh out tang yuan dough and roll into rounds. Use your thumb to press into a cup shape. Drop in a chocolate filling round.
Rotate the tang yuan with one hand while using fingertips of the other hand to pull and shape the dough until the opening closes. Roll gently between palms to round out the shape.
Place wrapped tang yuan onto starch dusted tray. Cover wrapped dumplings with a moist towel as you work.
When finished wrapping all set aside the number of tang yuan you want to eat right away. Place the tray with the rest into the freezer to harden. Once hard the tang yuan can be transferred to a zip lock for storage.
To cook the tang yuan prepare a pot of boiling water. Drop tang yuan in. Swirl the water a bit in the beginning to make sure that tang yuan don’t stick to the bottom. Once the tang yuan has floated to the surface it's ready to be scooped out.
Usually tang yuan is served in a bowl of sweetened ginger soup. However as this tang yuan is sweetened from outside to inside I think it better to serve it with something simpler. A bit of rock sugar melted in hot water is just the thing.
So that's our 'bonbon' style Chocolate Filled Raspberry Flavored Tang Yuans 覆盆子巧克力湯圓: tender, deliciously chewy raspberry scented skinned dumplings with a lusciously decadent burst of chocolate gooeyness as you bite in. My little girl gives this one 2 thumbs up!! ❤️
Chocolate Filled Raspberry Flavored Tang Yuan Recipe 覆盆子巧克力湯圓
(makes 36 tang yuans) Prep time: 15 mins Cook time:3-5 mins
Ingredients:
- 8 oz chocolate white bean paste filling, 225g (click link for our recipe)
- 2 1/2 cups glutinous rice flour 糯米粉, 300g
- 6 tbsp boiling water, 85g
- 6 tbsp room temp water, 85g
- 3/4 cups + 3 tbsp powdered sugar, 100g
- 2 tbsp raspberry powder, 21g (check out our homemade raspberry powder recipe)
Directions:
Prepare Tang Yuan Filling:
First prepare the white bean paste and then continue on to flavor it with chocolate to make the chocolate white bean paste. (Click on links for our recipes). Weigh out 10 grams portions of chocolate paste and roll into 36 nos of balls. Place onto tray, cover with cling film and place in fridge to allow the balls to firm up.
Prepare Tang Yuan Dough:
Add glutinous rice flour, powdered sugar and raspberry powder to mixing bowl. Use whisk to mix together.
Add boiling water to flour mixture. Stir and then knead until combined as much as possible. Add room temp water and knead until smooth, soft, very slightly sticky dough ball is formed. (If dough is too sticky add more glutinous rice flour, one tbsp as a time, kneading in completely each time. If too dry, add water one tbsp at a time, again kneading in completely each time.)
Weigh out 25 g portions of dough and roll into 36 nos of balls. Place onto a starch dusted tray and cover with moist towel or cling film to keep dough from drying out.
Wrap the Tang Yuan:
Take one ball of dough and use thumb to press into a cup shape. Add one ball of chocolate filling into the cup. Rotate the tang yuan with one hand while using fingertips of other hand to pull and shape the dough around the filling until the dough closes around the filling completely. Place onto starch dusted tray, cover with towel. Repeat until all tang yuans are wrapped.
Place to one side the tang yuan to be eaten immediately.
Cook the Fresh Tang Yuan:
Lay out serving bowls (one per person). Add a small dime sized piece of rock sugar to each bowl. Add boiling water to 60% full. Stir until the rock sugar is melted.
Prepare a pot with 3 inches of water. Don't overcrowd the pot. When water is boiling add in tang yuan, stirring a bit in the beginning to prevent tang yuan from sticking to the pot bottom. Once the tang yuan floats to the surface of the water, scoop out into the sugar water of the prepared serving bowls. Serve hot and delicious!
Store and Reheat Tang Yuan:
Place the tray with the rest of the tang yuan in the freezer. Once hardened the tang yuan can be placed in zip lock bag for easier freezer storage. Frozen tang yuan can be stored for many months.
To reheat follow the same cooking instructions as for the fresh tang yuan but add an extra minute of cooking after the tang yuans float to the surface.
Tantalizing Tang Yuans at The Hong Kong Cookery:
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