Chocolate Rice Balls 朱古力湯圓 (Cantonese: zhu gu lik tong yuen or in Mandarin: 巧克力湯圓 qiǎo kè lì tāng yuán) is a modern twist on an ancient recipe. I’ve been wanting to formulate an easy rice ball recipe so that more people can try making it at home. I also wanted to use common ingredients. Simplifying the dough wasn’t very hard. I was able to get the chewy texture of the skin just by combining the right amounts of hot boiling water and warm water to the sweet glutinous rice flour. Alas, the filling was not so easy.
Most people like the runny filling inside the rice balls. And the most popular filling is the black sesame filling. To make the filling runny, most recipes call for using lard or butter. Lard is the best option because it’s neutral tasting and its high melting point makes wrapping the rice balls very easy. I don’t like to use store-bought lard though, they tend to contain the preservatives BHA and BHT. So, the only option is to render it from actual pork fat. Some people may find this difficult, so I resorted to using butter. But then butter has a distinct flavour that I don’t feel goes well with black sesame.
I thought of two more alternatives to lard which were coconut oil and white chocolate. Both tasted great with black sesame but were very difficult to wrap because of their low melting points. They both start to melt when I touched them even after freezing them.
I was very discouraged because by now I’ve made a dozen batches of rice balls! That’s when I saw my box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates that I bought on sale! I quickly made a new batch of dough and proceeded to wrap the chocolates inside them. It was soooo easy!
I love Ferrero Rocher, so of course I love these rice balls! My son doesn’t love nuts like I do, so I wrapped a Lindor chocolate truffle and he thought they were delicious! And that’s how my Chocolate Rice Balls 朱古力湯圓 were born!
In my Chocolate Rice Balls 朱古力湯圓 recipe, I’ll show you how to make these super easy rice balls that has chocolate oozing out of them (the Lindor ones). It’s so much fun and easy enough that the whole family can wrap their own. You can add some food colouring to the dough and everyone can get their own colour. Choose chocolates that are round with various sizes because they represent everyone in your family, young and old, big and small. This would be a super fun way for the whole family to get involved in celebrating Chinese New Year.
I did not give up on black sesame. I made it the traditional way with lard that I rendered myself. The difficulty level is slightly higher than this one but well worth it! Check out my Black Sesame Rice Balls 芝麻湯圓 and Peanut Yuan Xiao 花生元宵 recipes.
Chocolate Rice Balls 朱古力湯圓
Ingredients
Ingredients:
- 13 Ferrero Rocher and/or Lindor Chocolate Truffle
- 150 g Glutinous rice flour
- 82 g Boiling hot water
- 40 g Warm water
- 10 g Glutinous rice flour for dusting your hands
Ingredients for red date soup:
- 10 g Sliced ginger
- 2 c Water
- 15 g Pitted red dates
- 25 g Brown sugar slab aka pian tang (brown sugar will be fine too)
- 10 Sugared lotus seeds 糖蓮子 (optional)
- 2 Sugared lotus root 糖蓮藕 (optional)
Instructions
These rice balls may be stored in the freezer prior to cooking. Do not thaw. Cook from frozen state.
- Prepare soup for rice balls by adding 2c water, 10g of sliced ginger, 15g pitted red dates (approx. 6) , 25g brown sugar slab (approx. ¼ of a slab), sugared lotus seeds (optional) and sugared lotus root (optional) in a pot. Bring to a boil and simmer until ready to use
- Measure 150g glutinous rice flour in a mixing bowl. Prepare a plate with 10g of glutinous rice flour to dust your hands with
- Boil 82g of water. It’s quite important to measure by weight and not by volume to ensure accuracy. I allow for approx. 2-4g of water to evaporate. Remove the water from the heat immediately when it boils and pour slowly into the glutinous rice flour.
If you leave the water boiling, too much water may have been lost to evaporation and you will need to redo this step. The boiling water will give the dough elasticity - Mix until the water is fairly even. There should be little clumps of flour.
I mix with chopsticks for around 1 minute - Add 40g of warm water in 2 intervals. Continue mixing with chopsticks
- Dust your hands lightly with glutinous rice flour and begin to knead the dough to form a ball.
The dough can be very sticky so you may need to dust your hands often - Knead until you have a fairly smooth ball and cover with a towel or plastic wrap for 5 minutes.
Kneading should take approx. 5 minutes - Prepare a plate to put the completed rice balls and a piece of plastic wrap to cover them to prevent the skin from drying
- Remove the chocolates from the wrappers
- Pull off or slice off approx. 20g of dough
I don’t precut each piece to prevent drying. This dough dries and hardens quickly so try to keep it covered at all times - Roll the piece of dough into a ball and flatten slightly with the palms of your hands
Remember to dust your hands with glutinous rice flour if the dough is still sticky - Make a well in the centre of the dough and form a bowl with your fingers
- Put the chocolate into the bowl and gently press the dough onto the surface of the chocolate
- Push the dough towards the opening to cover the whole chocolate
- Close the opening and roll between palms until dough is smooth
- Place onto plate, under plastic wrap and continue until the dough is finished
- When you’re half way done, start boiling a pot of water (approx. 1 - 1 ½ L) to cook the rice balls
I don’t cook the balls in the soup because you end up making too much soup and is wasted - When water boils, use a spoon to place the balls into the water. Keep stirring for around 1 minute to prevent balls from sticking to the bottom of the pot. You can put the lid on when the balls are no longer sinking to the bottom
- When the water boils again, add 1 ½ c of water into the pot and cover with a lid
- When the water boils again, turn heat down to medium and let it cook for 2-3 minutes until the balls have evidently increased in size.
- Remove the balls and serve with the red date soup
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