Tikoy (Chinese New Year sticky rice cake) is glutinous rice flour, sugar and water steamed into a dense, chewy cake, then chilled, sliced, dipped in egg and pan-fried. It tastes mildly sweet, a little like caramel when you use brown sugar, with crisp golden edges and a soft, stretchy middle.
This is the homemade version: three ingredients for the cake, about 45 minutes of steaming, and one night in the fridge before you slice it. If you bought a box of tikoy instead, skip to the frying section. The method is the same.
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Recipe
Tikoy (Homemade Chinese New Year Sticky Rice Cake)
Ingredients
For the tikoy
To fry
Method
- In a large bowl, mix 4 cups glutinous rice flour with 1 1/2 cups sugar until the sugar is spread evenly through the flour.
- Pour in 2 cups warm water and the vanilla, if using. Stir until the batter is smooth, thick and glossy, with no dry lumps left at the bottom of the bowl.
- Grease a heatproof pan or two llaneras that fit inside your steamer with a little oil, then pour in the batter.
- Steam over medium heat for about 45 minutes. Lay a clean cloth under the lid so water does not drip onto the cake. It is done when a toothpick pushed into the middle comes out sticky, not wet with batter.
- Let the tikoy cool, then cover it and chill it in the fridge overnight. Cold tikoy firms up and pulls away from the pan in one piece.
- Slice the chilled tikoy about 1/4 inch thick. Dip each slice in 2 beaten eggs and fry in 1/4 cup oil over low heat until both sides are golden and crisp. Drain on paper towels and serve warm.
What is tikoy?
Tikoy is the Filipino name for nian gao, the Chinese glutinous rice cake eaten at Lunar New Year. The word comes from Hokkien, the language of most Chinese-Filipino families, and in English it is usually called Chinese New Year cake or sticky rice cake.
It is given and eaten for luck. “Nian gao” sounds like “a higher year” in Chinese, so a sticky, sweet cake on the table stands for a year that keeps rising. In the Philippines you see boxed tikoy everywhere in the weeks before Chinese New Year, and it is sold year-round in Binondo, Manila’s Chinatown.
Tikoy ingredients
You need glutinous rice flour, sugar and warm water. Vanilla is optional. Eggs and oil are only for frying.
- Glutinous rice flour (also sold as sweet rice flour or “malagkit” flour). Regular rice flour will not work. It steams into a crumbly cake, not a chewy one.
- Sugar, white or brown. White sugar gives a pale cake. Brown sugar gives the amber colour and a deeper, caramel taste.
- Warm water, which helps the sugar dissolve into the batter.
A note on the amounts. Every tikoy recipe makes a different-sized batch, so we compared them per cup of flour. This card uses Foxy Folksy’s quantities. Its sugar-to-flour ratio matches Pinoy Cooking Recipes, and its water-to-flour ratio matches PinoyRecipe.net. Want it sweeter? Some cooks add up to a quarter cup more sugar. Taste the batter before it goes into the steamer.
How to make tikoy at home
Mix, steam, chill, slice. The steaming is easy. The chilling is the step people skip, and it is the one that makes slicing possible.
Mix flour and sugar.- Add warm water, stir smooth.
- Grease the mould, pour in.
- Steam about 45 minutes.
- Chill overnight, then slice.
- Dip in egg and fry.
Two things to watch. First, the batter. It should be thick but pourable, and smooth with no flour pockets. If it is stiff like dough, add warm water a tablespoon at a time.
Second, the doneness test. Raw batter in the middle looks wet and milky. Cooked tikoy turns slightly translucent and the toothpick comes out tacky, with no liquid batter on it. If the middle is still wet, put the lid back, steam it a little longer and test again. Keep an eye on the water in your steamer and top it up with hot water if it runs low.
Warm tikoy is too soft to slice cleanly. Give it the night in the fridge. It comes out firm, slices thin and holds its shape in the pan.
How to cook tikoy with egg
Slice the cold tikoy about a quarter inch thick, dip each slice in beaten egg, and fry it over low heat until both sides are golden. Low heat matters. The egg browns quickly, and the tikoy needs those few minutes to soften all the way through.
The slices will stick to each other and to your fingers. Wet your knife between cuts and lay the slices out on a plate before you start dipping. Fry a few at a time so they do not touch in the pan, then drain them on paper towels.
Serve them warm. Once fried tikoy cools, it turns firm and chewy again.
Homemade or store-bought tikoy?
Both are fine, and you cook them the same way. Boxed tikoy from a Chinese or Filipino grocery is already steamed, so it only needs slicing, egg and frying. Chill it first if it is soft.
Homemade is worth it when you cannot find a box, or when you want to choose the sugar and the sweetness yourself. It costs you about an hour of mostly hands-off steaming, plus the night of chilling.
Ways to serve tikoy
- Egg-fried slices, the usual way, with hot tea alongside.
- Tikoy rolls: strips of tikoy with toasted sesame seeds, wrapped in lumpia wrapper and fried until crisp, with condensed milk drizzled on top.
- Tikoy turon: a strip of tikoy and a few strands of langka (jackfruit) rolled in a lumpia wrapper and fried in oil with a little brown sugar.
- Sesame tikoy: sesame seeds scattered over the batter before steaming.
If you like steamed rice cakes, try kutsinta, sapin-sapin and palitaw. They use the same pantry and a lot of the same technique.
Storing and making ahead
Tikoy is a make-ahead cake by design. Steam it the day before you need it, keep it covered in the fridge, and slice and fry only what you are serving. Leftover fried slices reheat well in a dry pan over low heat until soft again.
Keep unfried tikoy wrapped tightly so the surface does not dry out and crack.
Tikoy questions
Questions people ask
Where did tikoy originate?
Tikoy comes from China. It is nian gao, the glutinous rice cake made for Lunar New Year, and it reached the Philippines with Chinese, mostly Hokkien-speaking, families. “Tikoy” is the Hokkien-derived name Filipinos use for it.
Can tikoy be eaten raw?
Tikoy is never raw once it is made. The cake is steamed, so it is already cooked, including the boxed kind. You can eat it as it is, but cold tikoy is hard and rubbery, so most people slice it and pan-fry it in egg until it softens.
Is mooncake the same as tikoy?
No. Mooncake is a baked pastry with a filling such as lotus seed or red bean paste, eaten at the Mid-Autumn Festival. Tikoy is a steamed glutinous rice cake with no pastry, eaten at Chinese New Year.
Are tikoy and kalamay the same?
No, although both are sticky and sweet. Tikoy is steamed glutinous rice flour, sugar and water. Kalamay is a Filipino sweet, usually cooked with coconut milk and stirred in a pan until thick. See our kalamay lansong for one version.
How long do you steam tikoy?
About 45 minutes over medium heat, until a toothpick in the centre comes out sticky rather than wet. The recipes we compared range from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the size and depth of the pan.
What is tikoy in English?
Tikoy is called Chinese New Year cake, sticky rice cake or glutinous rice cake in English. Its Chinese name is nian gao.
How many calories are in tikoy?
This page does not give a calorie figure. It depends on how much sugar goes in and how much oil the fried slices take up, and none of the recipes behind this card publishes a figure we could check.
