Prosperity Cake, or Fa Gao in Chinese, is a classic Chinese New Year food. All the symbolic food that Chinese people eat during the Chinese New Year has an auspicious meaning. Check out the meaning of this one, and its recipe.

Prosperity Cake, or Fa Gao in Chinese, is a classic Chinese New Year food. All the symbolic food that Chinese people eat during the Chinese New Year has an auspicious meaning. This includes good health, good fortune, and good luck. Prosperity Cake, as the name hints, means that you will make good money in this upcoming year after eating it on New Year’s Day. In Chinese, Fa means becoming rich, and Gao simply means cake. Since Fa could also mean “rising” of batter in baking, make sure your Prosperity Cake rises and splits at the top when you make it with the recipe below! The more it rises, the more prosperous you will be!

Ingredients:

Dry white rice - 4 oz (or 1/2 cup)

Luke warm water (90F) - 5 liquid oz (or 0.6 cup)

Brown sugar - 2 Tbsp

Low protein flour (cake flour) - 3 oz (or 6.5 Tbsp)

Baking powder - 1 tsp

Directions:

1. Rinse rice to clean. Pour some water over rice and let soak in room temperature for 3 hours.

2. Drain off the water. Put the soaked rice with lukewarm water and brown sugar in a blender. Puree to smooth.

3. Combine flour and baking powder with the rice milk in step 2 and stir well.

4. Pour and distribute the batter into 6 baking cups. Steam over high heat until the batter rises and splits open at the top (about 30 minutes).

Enjoy this delicious, auspicious, and healthy Prosperity Cake and have a prosperous Year of the Rat!