I was intrigued with the article (Pumpkin Xi Ban) that QQredapple posted in KC, thus I did a search and started to delve into this item called Xi Ban(喜粄) which a traditional yet important snack in the Hakka cuisine.



What is Xi Ban (喜粄）？

Ban is the Hakka version of rice snack as in the equivalent of "kuih" in Hokkien. Ban is a snack that is made mainly of glutinous rice flour or rice flour. Ban is the highlight of all special occasions in the Hakka cuisine be it in wedding celebrations, funeral mournings, temple rituals/praying or any other celebrations.



Some of the Bans that we are familiar with are:

Hong Ban(紅粄) - this is similar to our Ang Gu Kuih (紅龜粿). They usually make this ban red in color for any happy celebrations such as wedding or baby's full moon.

Fa Ban(發粄) - this is similar to our Huat Kuih ( 發粿 ). The Hakkas make these for funerals, Ching Ming festival and temple rituals. These Fa Bans must crack wide open with big smiles to be considered auspicious.



Why is the Ban(粄) an important item in the Hakka celebrations?

Ages ago, the Hakkas were very poor and the main ingredients for Ban is glutinous rice which is a stomach filling item. These Bans were served before any main dishes for any celebrations, so the guests will be full by the time the mains were served and hence the host saved on monies spent on the mains - thrifty nature of a Hakka!



If you have not tasted a Xi Ban before, let me tell you what it is like. The texture of this Xi Ban is soft and bouncy, moist and fluffy and slightly chewy when you bite into it. Wow! All the sensation in one little Ban.





The pretty yellow color is the color of the pumpkin that I used.





Ingredients:

(A)

200g plain flour

2 tsp yeast

170ml warm water



(B)

200g glutinous rice flour

100g plain flour

2 tbsp oil

250g-280g mashed pumpkin

110g sugar



Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients in (A) well in a big mixing bowl. Cover the bowl with a wet towel and let it prove for 3 hours.

2. Steam pumpkin for 15 minutes. Remove from steamer, add sugar to the hot pumpkin and mashed it with a fork.

3. Mix mashed pumpkin into the rest of ingredients in (B). (Do not add all pumpkin at once, I first add 200g and then 20g every other time till you get a pliable dough.

4. Knead (1) and (3) together till you get a smooth dough. Dough is a little sticky but you should be able to mould it into small round balls, otherwise add in 10g of flour till you get the dough that you can handle.

5. Divide dough into 50g pieces, mould them into smooth round balls and flatten them. Place them on greased baking sheet or banana leaf. Prove for 90 minutes then steam on medium heat for 16 minutes.

6. Stamp them with red coloring, however, this is optional. Glace them with cooked cooking oil and leave to cool before serving.

Two days ago, I was at North Point stocking up on Kdramas, then I pop over to the market to get some organic vegetables. The vendor had a newly arrived crate of durians for sale. She was very observant, she saw me eying the durians. She immediately asked her husband to open a fruit for me to try. Not able to resist the temptation of the King of fruits, I grapped one...imagine me eating durian on the street. The durian was so aromatic and sweet, without hesitation I bought one big Thai Golden Pillow. It cost me HK$50, not expensive at all!



Though durian is The King of Fruits, there is definitely a clear line of either you love it or you hate it. For those who love it, it is smooth, creamy, rich and aromatic. If you burp after you have eaten some, people from a yard away can smell you. For those who hate it, it is the smell of "cat's poo"!



Now back to my durian crepe cake! Why did I do a crepe cake instead of a baked cake? Really it was because I was shopping with DD last weekend at Sogo in Causeway Bay. While we were hanging around the street behind Sogo we were drawn by the nice aroma to a little kiosk which was selling crepes and the queue was so long, we didn't bother to queue and wait. Then this week I saw Edith's crepe, I went on to surf the net and discovered this Hokkaido Mille Crepe Cake which was so popular in Taiwan and the wait list for this cake was about a month(reported by TVBS programme). I was inspired!



Crepes are really versatile for many reasons because with one basic batter recipe you can do an array of both sweet and savory fillings. Just use your imagination and they really do wonders to the palate. Textures of crepe are really personal preferences - some like it thin and crispy, others like it soft and not too thin. For me, I did a sweet version with durian as the filling and a not so thin type of crepe.



Enjoy it or Hate it!!!











The lacy design of the crepe created naturally from the heat is so beautiful, so I used it as my top layer.









Joanna, this is how I get the crepes to be of standard size.

I used a flat base fry pan and a bottomless cake ring. Grease the ring for every crepe.

When the batter is firm, I use a cake tester to go around the cake ring to release the crepe, be careful of the heat from the cake ring.





Ingredients: (14 pieces 16cm crepes)

Crepe

200g cake flour/plain flour (I used cake flour)

3 eggs

1/2 - 3/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp sugar

400ml milk

3/4 tsp vanilla essence

70g melted butter



Filling

450g durian pulp

150g whipping cream



Method:

1. Mix all ingredients for the crepe together till you get a smooth runny batter. Strain if your batter is lumpy. Rest the batter for 45 minutes.

2. Heat up a non-stick flat based pan on medium heat and grease lightly with some butter or oil (I used corn oil). Pour in appropriate amount of batter and cooked till surface of the crepe is firm then flip over and cook for a little while more or till the crepe is of the goldening color that you liked. Repeat with the remaining batter. ** I used a 16cm cake ring as a girdle so that the size of my crepe will be uniform.

3. Remove seeds from the durian and mash durian pulp with a fork till creamy.

4. Whip whipping cream till stiff. Add in the durian pulp and blend with a spatula till well combined.

5. Put a piece of crepe on a cakeboard, add in the filling and smoothen with a flat palette knife. Make sure the filling is spread evenly, otherwise the cake will be lopsided. Alternate with a layer of crepe and a layer of filling. Chill the whole cake in the fridge.

6. Remove from the fridge and rest at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving.



Notes:

The filling I had was only enough for 11 crepes.

Number of crepes depends on the thickness that you liked. If you are making thinner crepes, you get more pieces and vice versa.