Jeungpyeon is a type of rice cake made by kneading rice powder with milky rice wine, garnishing it with jujubes, chestnuts, pine nuts and stone mushrooms, and then steaming it in a cake mold. Jeungpyeon is a good rice cake for the summer because it is fermented with wine, and does not spoil easily. It has a unique wine aroma, slightly sour taste and soft texture. It is enjoyed on Dano, the country’s biggest sun festival, which this year falls on Monday. 

Ingredients

● 250 g non-glutinous rice powder 3 g (1/4 tbsp) salt

● 50 g (1/4 cups) milky rice wine  

● 100 g (1/2 cups) tepid water (40 degrees Celsius)

● 5 g fresh yeast

● 40 g (1/4 cups) sugar

● 2 kg (10 cups) rice wine cake steaming water

● garnish 
- 8 g (2 ea) jujube
- 1g stone mushrooms
- 1.7 g (1/2 tsp) pine nuts
- 1 g pumpkin seed

● coloring
yellow
- 7.5 g (1/2 tbsp) water
- 2 g (1 ea) gardenia
pink color 
- 7.5 g (1/2 tbsp) water
- 3 g strawberry powder

1. Sprinkle salt over the rice powder and finely sieve twice. Add milky rice wine, tepid water, fresh yeast and sugar to the rice powder. Mix them with a wooden scoop thoroughly. Place it in a container, cover with poly-vinyl film, electrical heating mat and thick blanket. Maintain a temperature of 40-45 degrees Celsius.

2. Ferment it for 2 hours. When the dough swells up, stir it firmly and draw the air out. Ferment it again for another hour.

3. Wipe the jujube with a damp cotton cloth, cut the flesh round, make it into a flower shape. Soak stone mushrooms in water for 1 hour, wash with rubbing motion, wipe with cotton cloth, roll them up, and shred it into 0.1 cm-thick slices.

4. Remove the tops of the pine nuts, wipe the nuts with a dry cotton cloth. Halve the lengthwise to make scale-like pine nuts. Wipe the pumpkin seeds with a dry cotton.

5. Halve the gardenia, soak it in water for 1 hour for the yellow coloring. Dissolve the strawberry powder in water for the pink coloring.

6. When the 2nd fermentation is completed, divide the dough into 3 parts. Leave one part for white, and color one part of the dough with 1.5 g of gardenia water in yellow, the other part with 2 g of strawberry water in pink.

7. Put the dough in the cake mold. Garnish with jujube, mushrooms, pine nuts and pumpkin seeds.

8. Pour water into the steaming pot, heat for 9 min. on high heat. When it is steaming, turn off the heat, put the cake mold in the pot. Let it sit for 10 min. for a third fermentation (water temperature 83 degrees Celsius).

9. When the dough swells up again, steam it for 20 min. on high heat, and for another 10 min. on low heat.

10. When it gives off steam, take out the cakes and coat with oil.

(Adapted from The Taste of Korea)