Osmanthus Cake 桂花糕

One of my favourite things to do is to visit supermarkets and grocery shops locally and even when I am overseas.  I learn alot on the living and food culture of the local people just by browsing through the products on the shelves.  I usually end up bringing home a bag or two of stuff from these trips.  Sometime the purchases will include an unique product (that you usually do not find in supermarkets) and a product that I may have forgetten about its existence.

I recently bought a packet of Water Chestnut (马蹄) Flour.  This flour which is starchy in nature is usually not stocked by Cold Storage and NTUC Fairprice, but it should be available in bakery shop.  If you are staying in other countries (and not Singapore), you can get this from the Asian supermarket.  There are a few brands of water chestnut flour available.

This is one of those products that I have seen for many times but have never tried it.  Maybe I can make a Water Chestnut Cake for Chinese New Year, I thought to myself.  

I finally made the cake yesterday.  You will probably find it strange why did I title it "Osmanthus Cake" instead of "Water Chestnut Cake".   The cake that I finally made was "Osmanthus Cake" using the water chestnut flour I bought.

Osmanthus flowers (桂花)are fragrant and really smell like apricot to me, just more floral than fruity.  I have a bottle of osmanthus flowers that I used to make tea with and I figured I could make Osmanthus Cake instead since I love the fragrant smell.  You can get osmanthus from tea shops or chinese medical halls.  A teaspoon of osmanthus will give you a nice cup of tea.  It can also be used to make jelly and the golden yellow flowers add such a nice touch to the overall look of the jelly.

Here is the Osmanthus Cake (桂花糕) made at my first attempt!  Although the texture is not as smooth as it should be, the osmanthus cake turns out quite pretty and tastes yummy!