Steamed Water Chestnut Cake

When we were travelling in Winter Europe, the one smell that always gets me was roasted chestnut. The hot nutty aroma is difficult to resist.

In Asia, the reverse stands. We love our cooling chestnuts. It's eaten like a fruit even. A sweet dessert, water chestnut cake is usually transparent and crunchy with a jelly like texture to it. It is steamed and then chilled. Very refreshing and light.

I attempted this many years ago with granny. It was a failed attempt. The mixture was wet and runny. I was eating it as a "soup dessert" than it being a jelly!

I spotted what Lena did on her blog and pressed print immediately She made it look so easy! The only difference was, I did a soy milk version as I was curious to see how it turned out. I loved it as it has the creamy texture to it as well. The next time though, I would have to do the non-milk one just to satisfy my goal of making Chinese Water Chestnut cake successfully. Lena's recipe is very accurate so do hop to her blog and have a look.

PS- I rang grandma and told that it was FINALLY successful. She was so excited that she got me to read out what I used so that she could experiment with it. A funny moment happened when I realised I do not have the Cantonese translation for "Custard Powder". Here goes our conversation:

Me: "It's the yellow thingie in the bread that you like to eat..."
Grandma- "huh? butter?"  (I forgot she likes butter!!!)
Me: "no no, it's like a yellow thick cream...."
Grandma: "OH! That ........ " (gives a cantonese name to what I presume to be custard powder)
Me: "YA, i think so... sounds like it."
Grandma: "Comes in a tin right?!"
Me: "no leh, in a box here.. but could be a tin there."
Grandma: "ok, i will try"

I'm hoping that was indeed what she meant!!!!