Black Sugar Steamed Cake / 黑糖糕

I tried black sugar steamed cake when I went to Taipei 2 years ago and just loved the chewy QQ texture and mild sweetness of the black sugar. Though HK is a food paradise, I'm not sure where I can get black sugar steamed cake here. So I thought why not try to make it myself?

I wanted to use a recipe that was as authentic as possible so I found this one that was posted on a TW government website. The only problem was that it's all in Chinese! Doh! =|
Well, being the Google queen that I am (heehee!), I was quickly able to find this brilliant website which translated most of the common Chinese ingredients into English. Another issue that I had was that they were using a Chinese measuring system. I easily found out that one catty (一斤) = 600g and 1000cc = 1000mL. I decided to halve the recipe and voilà!

Below is the recipe I used.  Note that I made minor adjustments to the recipe so it's not a complete translation of the one on the government website.

Don't be alarmed by how ugly my cake looks… what happened was that I started steaming it in a big pot but the cake expanded so much that the top part stuck to the lid and wouldn't come off.  =( I ended up rummaging through the cabinets and trying to figure out what to do when I found out that we have a wok at home. Oops…

The cake came out a little denser than I would have liked coz of the incident.  Also, I think I didn't turn the heat high enough and so there wasn't enough steam in the beginning. O well, it was still edible! =) Practice makes perfect... 

Ingredients:
300g plain flour
150g potato starch
300g black sugar
20g baking powder
500mL warm water
Toasted white sesame seeds

Method:

1. Sift the black sugar into the warm water.  Let it dissolve completely and cool.
2. Sift plain flour, potato starch and baking powder into a bowl. Add into the black sugar water while stirring gently.
3. Pour mixture into a mould and steam on high heat for 18-22 minutes.
4. Once it's done steaming, sprinkle toasted white sesame seeds on top.