A childhood favorite of mine - red bean pudding cakes

It may sound odd but I have relatively few childhood memories.  I'm not sure if that means I just had a humdrum (boring) kind of childhood or that I'm repressing something (I hope not!).  It's to the extent where my family will tell me fairly eventful details about life when I was a child and I have no recollection of it whatsoever (when it's something that I really should remember).  I wonder if moving here to the States from Hong Kong when I was about eight has something to do with it...

And what I do remember is sometimes vague, as though I'm not sure I really lived it or if I just saw it on TV.  Sometimes I'll think of something and ask my sister to corroborate and she'll look at me like she has no clue what I'm talking about.  I think I'm making it sound more bizarre than it is (my sister's probably just messing with me) but suffice it to say, while I do have memory snapshots, I don't have lots of vivid childhood memories that link together.  But...some things I do remember include my love of certain childhood snacks.  It always goes back to food - no surprise!  If you're not Chinese, you might have no clue what this is but for me, it is one of my childhood loves.  Closest way of translation, they're "red bean pudding cakes."

These were a kind of street food or snack you'd get from a cart back in the day in Hong Kong.  I "remember" the vendor used to come around to our apartment building selling them; he'd shout them out and I'd beg my mother for one.  They would be served on a stick, much like a lollipop!  The texture is chewy and dense, sweet with bits of red beans.  I love them, then and now.

It's hard to find these little red bean pudding cakes around here.  When we went on a trip to Toronto, Canada (where there's great Asian cuisine), we found them in a few Asian bakeries and discovered a lady on the ground floor of a mall who made a delicious version that really brought me back.  But around here in the NY/NJ areas, they're not so common.

So after making some Asian desserts recently, I started looking for a recipe for these pudding cakes.  I found what seemed like a simple recipe and thought I'd give it a try.  As a major shortcut, I used canned or precooked red beans, which saves a lot of time since that's where the majority of the effort comes in.  These Chinese red bean pudding cakes are steamed and the batter is actually quite simple to mix together once you get your hands on the correct flours. 

I am so happy I made these; I feel like I solved a little mystery since I'd always wondered how they're prepared.  This was like nothing I'd ever made and I had no idea what to expect.  But when I lifted the steamer, I was thrilled to see that the liquid and loose batter had come together to form these little cakes that looked very much like the ones I adored as a child.  I'll admit they're not the best red bean pudding cakes I ever had but as a simple, homemade version, it's great.  And short of making a trip back to Hong Kong, I'm happy to have this recipe for when I have a hankering for a real childhood snack. 

I think these pudding cakes are best eaten the day they're made, after they've cooled down.  The edges are nice and chewy, my favorite thing about them.  I find that once they've been refrigerated, they lose that almost-bouncy chewiness around the edges, though the center is still nice with the bits of sweet red beans. 

So here's to childhood memories and favorite childhood snacks, whatever yours may be.