Turtle-shaped Red Rice Cake (紅龜粿)

In ‘Chinese Snacks’, one of the well-written bilingual (English-Chinese) Wei-Chuan Recipe Books (味全食譜), the brilliant picture of a bright red turtle-shaped rice cake (紅龜粿) caught Papa’s attention and brought back lots of fond memories about the culture of making traditional foods back in Taiwan, where Papa spent his formative years. Ever since then Papa was on a quest to find a pastry mold with turtle pattern (紅龜粿模).  On a recent trip back to Taipei, a dear friend surprised Papa by making a special trip to acquire such a mold from the renowned wholesale district in the city, Di-Hwa Street (廸化街). A picture of the solid wood pastry mold is proudly presented below. The pastry mold itself is only symbolic, to express a pastry maker’s wish for everyone to enjoy longevity and long-lasting peace of mind. In fact this rice cake can be made without the mold, and tastes equally delicious, as suggested in Step 7 below.

Ingredients

1. A pastry mold with turtle pattern (see picture above).
2. Glutinous Rice Powder, 2 cups, plus an extra 1/4 cup set aside for later use, in Step 6 below (available from any Chinese Market, use the Green Bag as shown in the product package picture below).
3. Rice Powder (regular, non-glutinous) 1/2 cup (use the Red Bag in the product package picture).
4. Sugar, 1/4 cup.
5. Beetroot Powder, 0.5 Tbsp (i.e., 1.5 tsp, as a natural red color source, available online or from a health food store). Note- FDA-approved Food Color can be used to produce more vivid red color. Other untested natural red color sources might include red rice yeast (紅麴), roselle flower (洛神花), dragon fruit (火龍果), and beetroot from the market veggie section (甜菜根).
6. Banana Leaves (available from the frozen package in some Chinese Markets).
7. Vegetable oil, with a brush.
8. For the internal fillings- a can of Red Bean Paste (from any Chinese Market), or Mung Bean Paste (following instructions in this previous post).

Method

1. Defrost the banana leaves. Cut banana leaves into 6 oval shapes,, each slightly larger than the turtle shape of the pastry mold.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add 2 cups of Glutinous Rice Powder (from Green Package), 1/2 cup of Rice Powder (regular, non-glutinous, from Red Package), and 1/4 cup of sugar.
3. Heat 1.25 cup of water in Microwave for 1 minute (using a 2-cup measuring cup). Add 0.5 Tbsp (i.e.,m 1.5 tsp) of Beetroot Powder into the cup, stir and mix until the Beetroot Powder is fully dissolved. Note- As a general rule, for 2.5 cups of rice powder, use 1.25 cup of water (waster is half in volume).
4. Gradually pour ~1 cup of the beetroot water mix into the mixing bowl, while stirring the rice powder mix with a pair of chopsticks. The rice powder should be in clump form when 1-cup of beetroot mix is poured into the mixing bowl. Now hand-knead the rice powder clumps into a dough. Add small amount of water as needed, until the the dough is smooth, and slightly hard (not soft, because more water content will be introduced in the following steps).
5. Take out ~1/10 of the dough and separate this part of the dough into 6-8 smaller pieces, each rolled into a small ball. Boil 1"-deep water in a small pot, and drop the 6-8 small balls into the boiling water. Now, cook till the balls float up. Take the balls out with a skimmer, i.e., a soup ladle with holes. Note- These boiled rice balls, called rice cake core (粿粹, in Chinese), will be rolled back into the bigger dough, to give the dough more structure, and the cake skin more texture (to function similarly as gluten in the flour).
6. Press the larger dough in the large mixing bowl flat, and place on top of the flattened dough with the cooked rice balls (from Step 5). Now roll the dough with the rice balls wrapped inside, till the dough is smooth. Add dry glutinous rice powder a little a time (up to 1 Tbsp a time), if the dough is too wet from the newly introduced water content.
7. Separate the dough into 6 equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball, and then, press each ball into a 2-to-3-inch flat round. Note- Cover the dough that's not being used with a damp cloth.
8. Scoop a large spoonful of red bean paste (or mung bean paste) onto the center of the flat round. Bunch the flat round tightly together at the top (like how you make Xiao-Long-Baos, with no worries about the nice wrinkles at the top)). 
9. Brush a thin layer of veggie oil on the pastry mold, and on top of the oval shaped banana leaf.  Press each bao-shaped dough portion into the mold firmly. And then place the mold on top of an oval shaped banana left, to let the now turtle-imprinted dough piece fall naturally on the banana leaf. Note- This pastry can be made without using a pastry mold. Simply press each bao-shaped dough portion into flat oval shape with your palm, and set it on an oval shaped banana leaf. 
10. Steam the turtle-shaped pastries in a steaming pot, in two-layers of steaming baskets, for ~8 minutes (NOT much longer than 8 minutes), at medium heat (not high heat). Note- Bring the steaming pot to boil (without the steaming baskets). Then add the steaming baskets on top of the steaming pot. Now reduce the heat to medium, and steam for 8 minuets. Do NOT steam much longer than 8 minutes (over-steaming will cause the pastry to soften and fall flat on its own weight). I use a 12-inch stainless steaming pot with two layers of steaming baskets. Each layer of steaming basket allows up to 4 turtles. The lower basket seems to get a lot of vapor drops from the bottom of the top basket and the turtles become flatter in shape and paler in color. The top basket doesn't seem to have this problem, from the dome lid. Note- Will try bamboo steamer baskets next time.
11. Take the lid off right away, tilt the steaming basket to let vapor fluid flow off from the pastry pieces. Now, brush a thin layer of veggie oil on the surface of each pastry piece. Here is an outcome from our kitchen-
    
12. The pastry pieces can be easily stored in fridge for days, and in freezer for weeks. To reheat, defrost (if frozen), and place the pastry pieces on a dry frying pan (without oil). Turn on low-to-medium heat, and heat for 3-4 minutes each side.