My First Attempt at Chinese New Year's Baking

I'm an avid baker. Over the years, I've tried my hands at cookies, pies, cake pops, cupcakes, fancy cakes, and even a wedding cake. And dare I say it, I'm pretty good at it. So I thought, since I live in Singapore (a majority Chinese country) and since Chinese New Year is coming up, why not try my hand at baking something traditional? 

Partially inspired by the mouth-watering Google images of "steamed koi fish cakes," I set out to make mini steamed koi fish cakes. My first clue that this was a bad idea should have been the fact that I did not even own a steamer, which is required for many of the various koi cake recipes. Secondly, glutinous rice flour and coconut milk are not the easiest of ingredients to work with. Thirdly, I've probably only cooked two other Chinese dishes in my entire life and they were pretty mediocre. 

In Chinese culture, Koi are symbols of prosperity and success. Success is not what I achieved in this baking endeavor. My first attempt to make the cakes was a total failure and had to be thrown out completely. It was the consistency of those "sticky hands" you get in little plastic eggs from children's vending machines at the grocery store. You know, the kind you throw at the wall and they stick?

The second attempt, which consumed two and a half more hours of my life, yielded a sink full of dishes, sticky globs of goo on the counter, and still inedible, but somewhat better-looking fish (see pictures). No matter how long I cooked the various batches - ten minutes, thirty minutes, an hour - they remained translucent where there wasn't any coloring. When I tried them, they were almost tasteless except for a faint hint of coconut muddied by the overpowering flavor of rice. The texture was that of jelled, but slightly under-cooked gummy bears. 

I found the experience challenging, but somewhat fun, despite the less-than-prosperous results. Oh, well, guess I'll just have to find a good Chinese bakery, but that shouldn't be too hard, there are plenty of them around.