Dim Sum Classic – Turnip Cake (蘿蔔糕)
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If you enjoy turnip cake, also check out this newly posted pescatarian radish cake recipe.
So you’ve heard of the term Dim Sum and probably learned from your Chinese friends that it means small bites and snacks in Cantonese. In fact, dim sum is loosely defined term and depending on the context and occasion it means different things ranging from sweet desserts to delicate seafood soup to salty fried meat. But for me, dim sum means going to a Cantonese morning tea place(yum cha) and ordering up a few push cart dishes such as shrimp dumpling (Har Gaw /蝦餃), barbecue pork bun (Cha Siu Bao /叉燒包), egg tarts (Dan Ta 蛋撻), and of course the famous turnip cake(蘿蔔糕).
Turnip cake (aka daikon radish cake) is a popular dim sum dish as well as a common appetizer served during Chinese New Year dinner in Cantonese region. Over the years I’ve learned to appreciate this little delicacy and become pretty picky. At its core a good turnip cake should be filled with detectable radish inside If Ican’t see or taste a good amount of radish I know I am probably just eating mostly the flour. I also like my turnip cake pan fried to golden brown but still soft in the middle. As I bite into it, I want to feel the crunchiness of the smell the aroma from the flavoring ingredients from as shiitake mushroom, dried shrimp, and meat…..
With that said, I have researched, tried, and finally concluded that the only place you can find decent turnip cake is either in an authentic Cantonese dim sum place (one that filled with old Chinese patrons) or from someone’s home kitchen. In any case I try to avoid the pre-made turnip cake because you have not found a single one of them that’s nearly as good as a homemade one. The bottom line is if you just stumbled onto this page and have no idea what turnip cake is, I suggest you try it first in a Cantonese dim sum place. If you are like me who is serious about the turnip cakes (or food in general), you’ll appreciate every effort you put on making this
To serve, I like to dip in hoisin sauce and a dash of sriracha would have been the icing on the cake!
What is your favorite turnip cake dipping sauce?
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Is there a step by step for the turnip cake?
Hi Virginia, the post is not showing the recipe properly and I am trying to fix it. In the meantime, please check out this similar recipe. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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I recall having this with peanuts in it – peanuts that’s that’s softened, perhaps from the steaming process. Delish…
HI Will, thanks for visiting my blog. There are quite a few variations and addition of peanuts is one of them. I’d say the peanut is most likely precooked as it takes quite sometime for it to get soft. Maybe I will try the peanut version sometime soon.
Looks good, pretty pictures.
Thanks Jim!
I signed up and got a link to download the free Chinese New Year Cookbook 2016, but it did not download, would not connect to the site where the file stored. I like to make taro cakes for the August Moon Festival next week. Can I make taro cakes using the turnip cake recipe? Better yet, please post the taro cake recipe too. Thank you. Happy August Moon Festival.
Thanks Leslie. Hope you get to cook the taro cake from the free recipe book.
Does the ratio work for taro cake as well? I’ve tried one version, but the ratio was flipped and the results were crispy, but definitely not gelatinous and gooey like I wanted.
Hi Lori, thanks for checking out my blog. I actually shared a taro cake recipe in my free cookbook. You can download it from here. Hope this helps.
Hi Yi
I have made this for the first time using your recipe. I made half the mixture. I didn’t have any cooking wine so just added a splash of white wine vinegar. It was seriously delicious!! Yum. I am now going to go and peruse your other recipes. Thanks. And Happy New Year!
Hi There, happy new year and thanks for trying out my recipe. I am so glad that you like the turnip cake. Hope you’ll find other recipes interesting and delicious as well!
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yi, it turned out quite nicely, I place a small saucer on top of the dish of mixture before microwaving it to keep the top from drying out.
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Yi, do you really mean six pounds of radish? I only have a little over 3 pounds, I really a few other recipes, they always call for less radish. this must be tasty as it is more pure in term of the radish proportion versus the rice flour.
I hope I can get a reply soon as I want to make the cake in two days.
I like your recipe.
Hi Sally, yes the ratio is correct. The key is to remove as much liquid from the radish as possible before you mix the radish with rice flour. Hope this answers your question.
I will halve the recipe then. More radish should be better. Thank you so much for your prompt reply. I will work on it tomorrow morning!
Can’t wait to start reading your collection of recipes.
yi, in my excitement to make the cake, I miss the part about remove as much liquid from the cooked radish, what I did was kind of scoop them out of the pot. I added almost the whole bag of rice flour. It turned out fine.
The interesting part I want to share is I microwaved it instead of steam cook.
It took a total of 20 minutes at power level 6 in my microwave oven. I cooked it in a 6 inch glass souffle dish. I had to do this twice.
I am going to make another recipe this morning, it should greatly improved.
Thanks.
Hi Sally, thanks for the feedback. Please let me know how the second batch came out!
Thank you for this recipe. My husband ,from Hong Kong, thought it good enough to take to his mah jong group. Just one question, what consistency should the batch be? Like bread dough or cake batter? Thanks
Hi Marica, thanks for visiting. the consistency would be closer to cake batter but slightly less runny. Hope this helps. Thanks.
This is my first time pay a quick visit at here and i am actually happy
to read everthing at one place.
trying to subscribe to your free chinese new year cookbook but i cant download
can you pls kindly adv
mthks
Hello Fong, sorry for the late reply but you should be able to download now. Thanks for subscribing!
Thank you for this recipe! My grandmother and mom used to make this and it was my favorite, but they were ‘old-school’ and never worked from a recipe so I could never remember how to make turnip cake. Your recipe brought back the smells of my grandmother’s kitchen during Chinese New Year! I used ground pork, shiitake mushrooms and minced crabmeat. It turned out a bit more stiff than I would’ve liked, so I probably needed to add a bit more water, but it was still delicious. We used oyster sauce and Sriracha. I can’t wait make it again! Thanks for the recipe!
Hello Ester, thanks for the feedback! I am glad to hear that you got to try out this recipe! I like the idea of using crab meat and would like to try that next time! Thanks again for visiting my blog!
Hi Yi. I tried this recipe yesterday. It’s part of my new year’s fare. It’s kind of advanced but i wasn’t sure if I will be able to poull it. Luckily, I did! Thank you so much for making the recipe easy to follow.
Note to everyone who have a moment (or two) of doubt regarding the batter consistency: HOLD IT! Do not give in to adding more water. I may have super drained my radish [ Isqueezed them dry 🙁 ] but I only added 2 cups water. It was very lumpy at first and of course kept falling off the laddle. But I vigorously mixed it for about 5 more minutes and got the desired consistency.
As I did not have the 9-in pans, I used 3 7-in tin pans. They still look great 🙂
Thanks again. I’m off to try the mantou and char siu. Btw I’m still looking forward to a TARO PUFF recipe 🙂
Hello Elim, thank you very much for the feedback on the turnip cake recipe!! I am glad that it all worked out for you at the end! I’d love to the picture of your finished turnip cake one day. I’ve also got a CNY cookbook out and it’s free for download so please help yourself with a copy 🙂
Wish you and your family a happy Chinese New Year!
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I’ve already successfully cooked your savory sticky rice which turned out to be a hit at home. I’m planning to try this radish cake next. I’d just like to clarify one thing. Do you just drain or squeeze most of the water from the radish? Thanks.
Hi John, thanks for your feedback on the sticky rice. To answer your question, you want to squeeze to remove most of the water from the radish. If you can, put the radish in the a cheese cloth and squeeze as hard as possible. I hope this helps. Please don’t hesitate to drop a line if you have any other questions. Thanks!
-Yi
Have you tried baking these loaves in a bain marie instead is steaming? My wok only takes one pan at a time and the bain marie would allow me to cook all of them at once.
hi CPR, first of all thanks for checking out my blog. To answer your question, the cake would not come out the same if you were to bake it. It would come out a little drier and with a less smooth consistency. If you had to baked the cake, make sure you cover it with aluminum foil and leave a pan of water in the lower level of your oven. This will keep your cake moisture and as close as the steamed version. I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other ideas.
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This may sound naive, but I am still confused how to seam the 9 inch pan? Do I put the whole pan in the wok with water and cover it? Sorry for the potentially silly question. Very excited to try to recipe!!
Hi Yi! Made this sometime last week. It was a hit! Thanks for the great recipe! 🙂
Hello Leng, thanks for your feedback. I am so glad that the turnip cakes came out good!
You have no idea how much I miss my grandmother’s turnip cake – this recipe is SO AMAZING, THANK YOU!!! Even halving the recipe and winging it, it turned out absolutely spot on.
Hi Daria, thank you for the feedback. Turnip cake is one of favorite Cantonese dim sum dishes and I am so happy that you liked the recipe!
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Yi, if I were to omit the pork would the quantities for the other ingredients remain the same? Thanks, Mare
Hello Mare, if you were to skip pork, you can replace pork with extra shiitake mushroom and dried shrimp. This way you could keep other ingredients the same. Otherwise, I’d decrease the radish and rice flour slightly. Thanks.
Thank you Sir! 🙂
How did you manage to steam the the turnip cake in a 9 inch pan?
hey Jennie, I steamed it in a 16 inch wok I have. Please let me know if you have any other questions!
I thought this stuff was taro…
You can use Taro too.. We have made it with Pumpkin too..
sorry.. did not put my info..
Thanks Zaw. I agree with you on that Taro cake is just as popular as turnip. I also enjoy the cake made from waterchestnuts although it’s on the sweet side. I have yet to try the cake made from pumpkin but i’d love to try it. Is it done with the same method? Thanks.
Yes. It can be done with the same method. We did not put pork in it tho. just dried shrimps.
thanks Zaw. Will try to make it soon!
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Can Lo Bak Goh really be frozen?
Yes it can. Just wrap the cake with a Ziploc and seal it well so it won’t dry up in the freezer. Before you want to cook it just leave it in room temperature for a few hours and you are ready to pan fry!
Any recipe for soup dumplings??
Yes I’d love to share the soup dumpling recipe for a special occasion. Please stay in tuned. Thanks.
Thank you so much for the recipe. I have been looking for this for long time.
Hello Zaw, thanks for stopping by my blog. I hope you get to make this delicious turnip cake 🙂
Wow, i love these….never had any idea how they made them!! This site looks great..all kinds of “secrets” one would never know! Keep them coming!
Thank you for this recipe! Your website looks great. I’ve made it, because I was not satisfied with the dimsum restaurants’ version or the frozen ones from Chinese shops. As it was way too much for me, I now have homemade frozen lo bak koh! Yummy!
Yummm, turnip cake is one of my favorite dishes at dim sum. This recipe doesn’t look toooo difficult, so I will definitely need to try this at home! Thanks for posting!
I’m trying to learn to cook, especially Chinese dishes, and I’m glad I found your blog!
Thanks for your visit Jackie.
Thanks for sharing turnip cake recipe.
It is my favorite.
Thanks Yuzana!
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Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! It is radish right? Radish and turnip are 2 quite different ingredients. If ive eaten this at dim sum restaurants, it most likely had chinese sausage and mushrooms minced up in it, correct? Such a simple food but so good! Thanks again!
Hi Jeremy thank you for stopping by! Yes I agree the ingredient I use is radish not turnip. I label it as turnip cake as that’s how the package ones called – incorrectly of course. I thought calling it this way would cause less confusion. Anyway, you can add sausages and any other ingredients to it. That’s the beauty of doing it at home. Hope you get to try this recipe!
I never imagined anyone made these at home. In New York’s Chinatown, it is so easy to buy it ready made. I guess once one knows the basic recipe, one can add in a few extra ingredients like watercress or goji berries or chives or strands of calamari. The mind runs wild.
Hi Gregor, thanks for stopping by! I still buy the packaged turnip cake in Chinese grocery store from time to time because it’s convenient. However the quality is nowhere near the homemade version. And you are right that another advantage of making this at home is you can put almost any ingredients to the turnip cake 🙂
Wow! I lived in China for almost 9 and 1/2 years and I LOVE to cook authentic Chinese dishes. This site looks GREAT!!
Hi Jonathan, thanks for checking out my site. I hope you find some of the recipes useful to you!
WOW! You actually made these?!? These are one of my fav yum cha dishes! Sorrily I have not had them since I left Hong Kong a year or so ago. I gota find a dim sum place…
Hello Manny,
Thanks for checking out this site.
Yes most of the dim sum places around the world has it so you’ll definitely find it somewhere! But if you like turnip cake you gotta try the homemade version. It just tastes so much better.
i love turnip cakes, but never really thought about what was in them or what goes into making them until reading this post. thank you for sharing!
Thanks for stopping by xq!
I love this!!!
Thanks Amy!
i love love turnip cake (as well as the taro version) but its always such a hassle making at home – altho much healthier and u can add more radish hehe.
yours look delicious – will use this recipe next time i make this dish 🙂
Good call on the taro cake, it is actually made in a similar way. Likewise I love both turnip cake and taro cake (especially the homemade version) !
Mom modified this Turnip Cake recipe using fresh ground pork because all her three kids do not like preserved meat. To many Cantonese, preserved meat gives more fragrant to the festive Turnip Cake.
Using a food processor to shred the turnips definitely makes the production effortless.
I am totally going to try this, but have to get a shredder first. and hopefully i pick the rice flour and not anything else.. usually not very good at that.. lol
Thanks for Posting!!
Thanks Xing. Just keep in mind that you will be looking for the plain rice flour not the glutinous one. Otherwise you’ll end up making a “sticky turnip cake” 🙂
I didn’t even know you can make this at home from sketch! Way to go~
Thanks Miranda! This is one of those dishes that less and less people are willing to make at home.
Lo Bak Goh is one of favorite dishes that my mom used to make. Due to her age, she hasn’t made it in a long time. I guess now that you’ve published this recipe, I’ll have to give it a try! My mom made her own rice flour by grinding it down to a powder in the blender. I like this with just soy sauce and a dash of sesame oil! But hoisin is good too. Thanks for posting!
Hi Darlene, I never thought of making my own rice flour before but I’ll try that next time when I make this! Thanks for sharing your story with me!
Mom’s homemade turnip cake is usually the best would you agree?
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