Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cereals and bread from Foshan for bai tang gao, Longyou for a fermented rice cake, Hakka regions, Singapore, Thailand, Mauritius, Réunion

Bai tang gao and fa gao (Chinese fermented steamed rice cakes)白糖糕

Bai tang gao and fa gao are steamed cakes of rice flour or rice slurry, sugar and water that are leavened by fermentation. Yeasts and lactic acid bacteria raise the batter and give bai tang gao its slight sourness before it is steamed. Some recipes use baking powder instead and are not fermented.

Fully documentedCereals and bread8 h

Recipe

Bai tang gao and fa gao (Chinese fermented steamed rice cakes), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Benjwong at English Wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceThe sugar and starter levels are the optimum found in a laboratory study of fermented rice cakes (He et al. 2022); household recipes vary.
Rice slurry or rice flour batter[li2025][he2022]
Sugar20 % (laboratory optimum)[he2022]
Starter6 % (laboratory optimum)Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida humilis in a 1:3:6 ratio, the strains named in the study, isolated from a fermented rice cake slurry[he2022]
Starteryeast (traditionally) or a composite yeast and lactic acid bacteria starter

Total time across the recorded steps: 8 h

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Soaked rice is ground into a smooth slurry

Step 1 of 4
Soak and grind the rice into a slurry
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Saccharomyces
Lactobacillus
Yeasts
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: rice slurry.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Bai tang gao and fa gao are steamed cakes of rice flour or rice slurry, sugar and water that are leavened by fermentation. Yeasts and lactic acid bacteria raise the batter and give bai tang gao its slight sourness before it is steamed. Some recipes use baking powder instead and are not fermented. Made in 4 steps over 8 h. The longest step, ferment the batter, takes 8 h (He L. et al. 2022) and runs at 32 °C (He L. et al. 2022). Saccharomyces (yeast), which became dominant in a fermenting rice slurry and Lactobacillus (lactic acid bacteria), also dominant in the same slurry do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step8 hReported[he2022]Ferment the batter
Temperature32 °CReported[he2022]Ferment the batter

What makes this one different

Bai tang gao and fa gao are raised by a short warm fermentation of a rice batter, not by kneaded wheat dough. Steamed buns and mantou are wheat; these cakes are rice. Versions made with baking powder skip the fermentation.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Fa gao (prosperity cake)Its top splits into 3–4 parts as it steams; eaten at the Lunar New Year.
  • Longyou fermented rice cakeMade from a fermented rice slurry in which Saccharomyces and Lactobacillus come to dominate.
  • Baking-powder versionsNot fermented; leavened chemically.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Bai tang gao is linked with Foshan in Guangdong, and fa gao with the Lunar New Year.

  1. [he2022] He L. et al. 2022, Isolation and identification of Lactobacillus and yeast species and their effect on the quality of fermented rice cakes, Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies 77 (abstract)paper
  2. [li2025] Li W., Chen Z., Chen C., Jin D., Gu Z., Hong Y. 2025, Dynamic microbial succession and flavor characteristics during Longyou rice cake fermentation, Cereal Chemistry 102(3):681–691 (abstract)paper
  3. [s1] Wikipedia, Bai tang gao (outline only)wiki
  4. [s2] Wikipedia, Fa gao (outline only)wiki