Kreamy Vegan

Surprise your friends and family with beautiful songpyeon.

The Korean Thanksgiving Chuseok was getting closer and I was so excited. I had been experimenting a lot with rice cake recipes from ingredients to shapes to surprise my friends and family with beautiful and delicious songpyeon. I have written a post about the basics of making Songpyeon, one simple way to decorate your Songpyeon, and I am here to share with you an advanced version of this awesome rice cake. It is a lot of fun to add some colors and shape the dough into objects that I almost love creating songpyeon more than eating it! I feel like I am in an art studio creating beautiful objects and being creative.

The instructions for making the dough are very similar to making the white songpyeon, you only need to add ingredients that will give colors and you add less or more water depending on the ingredients. Instead of using artificial color dye, we use natural ingredients to give colors and a subtle taste to the rice cake in Korea. There are typical ingredients for iconic songpyeon (and many other types of rice cake) colors that we have been using throughout history – pumpkin for yellow and mugwort for green. Nowadays, you have more natural choices such as using beetroot and strawberry powder for red and pink. I like to make mine in orange, purple, green, and white. To decorate, I make a small batch of yellow and brown dough.

Coloring you need for Rice Cake Recipe

Using natural pigment powders, such as purple sweet potato powder and fruit powder like the one I show you below, in your food provides several advantages over chemical pigments.

• No harmful Additives: Natural pigments are derived from real food sources, like fruits, vegetables, or herbs, and contain no synthetic additives, preservatives, or harmful chemicals that may be present in some chemical pigments. This makes them a healthier option for consumption.
• Rich in Nutrients: Natural pigments often come from colorful fruits and vegetables that are rich in essential nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Using purple sweet potato powder, for example, not only adds a vibrant hue to your food but also introduces beneficial compounds like anthocyanins, which have antioxidant properties.
• Natural Flavor Retention: Natural pigments can contribute subtle flavors to your food, enhancing the overall taste of the food. In contrast, artificial pigments may have neutral or even undesirable chemical tastes, and they certainly don’t contribute any nutritional value.
• Environmentally Friendly: Natural pigments are often sourced from sustainable and renewable resources. Choosing these options supports eco-friendly practices and reduces the environmental impact associated with the production and disposal of synthetic chemicals.

So these are my choices.

Starter Bundle 4 Pack – 3 Powders (Blue, Pink & Purple) & Rose Petals Bloom

This starter bundle of 4 packs that have blue, pink, and purple colors as well as rose petals is a great way to start naturally decorating your food!

Anthony’s California Spirulina Powder

Just a tiny bit of spirulina powder goes a long way! It gives a beautiful vibrant green pigment and extra nutrition, this is my go-to ingredient for any green coloring in my food. In this rice cake recipe, I use both mugwort and spirulina powder. You might find it difficult to find mugwort powder from where you live, then you can substitute it with spirulina powder.

Kreamy Vegan

Flowers, leaves, pumpkin-shaped songpyeon

Decorative songpyeon for Chuseok, Part 2

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Korean

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

  

Purple Songpyeon Dough

• 200 g Rice flour
• 30 g Purple sweet potato
• 2 g Salt
• 150 ml Hot water

Orange Songpyeon Dough

• 200 g Rice flour
• 2 g Salt
• 150 ml Hot water
• 60 g Orange sweet potato

Green Songpyeon Dough

• 200 g Rice flour
• 2 g Salt
• 2 g Mugwort powder
• 1 g Spirulina powder
• 180 ml Hot water 2/3 cup

Yellow Dough (for decoration)

• 50 g Rice flour
• 20 ml Hot water
• 1/8 tsp Turmeric powder a dash

Green Dough (for decoration)

• 50 g Rice flour
• 20 ml Hot water
• 1 g Spirulina powder

Brown Dough (for decoration)

• 50 g Rice flour
• 20 ml Hot water
• 1/8 tsp Cocoa powder

Fillings

• 1/2 cup Sesame seeds roasted and half-grinded
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup Roasted soybean powder
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 tbsp Date syrup

Method

 

Purple and Orange Songpyeon Instructions

1. Steam the sweet potatoes for 20 minutes.
2. While the sweet potatoes are cooking, mix salt and rice flour.
3. Bring the water to a boil, and put hot water bit by bit on the rice flour. Mix the rice flour thoroughly with a spatula as you put hot water so every part of the rice flour gets moisturized.
4. Once the sweet potatoes are cooked, put the hot sweet potato right to the dough mixture. Knead the dough for 10 minutes once the flour gets clumped. Put the dough inside a container and let it rest for 20 minutes. In the meantime, make fillings. See the instructions how to make fillings below.
5. Shape the dough into a ball and make a shape as a songpyeon. Please find detailed instructions below.*

Green Songpyeon Instructions

1. Mix salt and rice flour. To make green songpyeon, add the mugwort and spirulina powder.
2. Bring the water to a boil, and put hot water bit by bit on the rice flour. Mix the rice flour thoroughly with a spatula as you put hot water so every part of the rice flour gets moisturized.
3. Knead the dough for 10 minutes once the flour gets clumped. Put the dough inside a container and let it rest for 20 minutes. In the meantime, make fillings.
4. Shape the dough into a ball and make a shape as a songpyeon. Please find detailed instructions below.*

How to make fillings

1. Roast the sesame seeds in a pan or put them in the oven for 15 minutes at 160 Celsius or 320 Fahrenheit. It will turn into a golden color.
2. Cool the sesame seeds and grind them until half of the sesame seeds are broken and half of them are intact.
3. Mix the sesame seeds, sugar, soybean powder, salt, and 1/4 of a teaspoon.

How to shape Songpyeon into flowers*

1. Divide the purple dough into 20 grams each.
2. Roll the dough into a ball.
3. Flatten the ball into a small disk, and place a small amount of your desired filling. Usually, a 1/3 teaspoon will work.
4. Carefully fold the dough over the filling to encase it, then pinch the edges together to seal it.
5. Dip your fingers in some water if the dough starts to crack.
6. Roll the enclosed dough into a ball, and slightly flatten it.
7. Using a tool with a flat tip, make long grooves. If you don’t have a tool, you can use the back of a fork or a chopstick.
8. Take a small piece of yellow dough and make a ball out of it. Then put the yellow dough in the center of the flower.

How to shape the songpyeon into pumpkin

1. Divide the orange dough into 20 grams each.
2. Roll the dough into a ball.
3. Flatten the ball into a small disk, and place a small amount of your desired filling. Usually, a 1/3 teaspoon will work.
4. Carefully fold the dough over the filling to encase it, then pinch the edges together to seal it. 
5. Dip your fingers in some water if the dough starts to crack.
6. Roll the enclosed dough into a ball. You can lightly flatten and make the dough have a square shape like a persimmon.
7. Take a small piece of green dough and make shapes like a little stick.
8. Put the stick on top of the pumpkin.
9. Add a dash of cocoa powder into a small piece of dough. when the dough shows a brown color, make a small stick out of the dough and put the branch on the very top of the persimmon.

How to shape the songpyeon into a leaf

1. Divide the orange dough into 20 grams each.
2. Roll the dough into a ball.
3. Flatten the ball into a small disk, and place a small amount of your desired filling. Usually, a 1/3 teaspoon will work.
4. Carefully fold the dough over the filling to encase it, then pinch the edges together to seal it.
5. Roll the enclosed dough into a ball, and slightly flatten it.
6. Elongate the dough and make a little tip on the top. Then by using a tool with a flat tip, make long grooves like leaves.

How to steam songpyeon

1. Line a steamer with fresh pine needles if you have one. This traditional step adds a fragrant aroma to Songpyeon, but it’s optional.
2. Steam the Songyeon for 20 minutes until they become translucent and have a shiny appearance.
3. Let it cool and brush it lightly with some neutral oil. Then serve it with a warm glass of tea!

Notes

Tips

• Using spirulina, turmeric, and cocoa powder is not a traditional ingredient, however, they provide such beautiful and vivid colors to the dough with only a dash of this powder.
• Once the songpyeon is cooked, it gets darker in color. I like to have the dough in a pastel tone so the colors of my songpyeon are in beautiful clear colors. I prefer some medium tones to very deep colors on my songpyeon.
• It is very important to use the correct rice flour! If you cannot find Korean rice flour, then you can use 50% of the rice flour of your choice and 50% of the glutinous rice flour. Korean rice flour is usually stickier than other kinds, which is a key feature you need in a rice cake. I find Thai rice flour works similarly to Korean rice flour. If I can’t even find Thai rice flour, I use 50% of Indian rice flour and 50% of Vietnamese glutinous rice flour.

I love surprising people with these beautiful songpyeon. I had my guests over this Sunday for coffee and some songpyeon this Sunday. When I presented these flower songpyeon, they thought the songpyeon was shipped from South Korea. When I told them I had made them in the morning and just steamed them now, they were so surprised. And when they tasted the flower songpyeon, they exclaimed “It tastes like songpyeon!” That made me laugh. They were a little too decorative and not in a usual rice cake shape, they thought they were going to taste different from the original songpyeon. I took that as a compliment. Enjoy making your beautiful songpyeon and wish you surprise your guests as well! Happy songpyeon making 💚