Glutinous Rice ball with black sesame filling (黑芝麻汤圆)

It is almost Chinese Lantern Festival. It is tradition to eat glutinous rice balls. The official name of the rice ball is YuanXiao (元宵). The name literally means "first evening", being the first full moon after Chinese New Year. Another more common name is TangYuan(汤圆), which is a homophone for union. Chinese normally eat them at the Lantern festival when the whole family are together to celebrate family reunion.

Ingredients:

Roasted black sesame powder - 1 bag 10oz (283g)
Powdered sugar - about 10oz (283g)
Clarified butter - made from 1 cup of butter (2 sticks) (traditionally, lark is used)
Glutinous rice flour - 260g
Water - about 2/3 cup

Steps:

1. If you do not have black sesame powder, roast some black sesame in a fry pan, and then grind to powder with spice grinder.

2. Whisk black sesame powder and powdered sugar together in a mixing bowl. Try the mixture for sweetness, add more sugar if needed.

3. Place the butter in a heavy saucepan and melt slowly over low heat. Remove the pan from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Skim the foam from the top, and slowly pour into a container, discarding the milky solids in the bottom of pan.
4. Pour clarified butter in the sesame mixture gradually and keep stir until the paste is moist and you can pick some and roll into a ball.

4. To make it easy to work with, you can put the filling in refrigerator for 30 minutes before use.
5. Add water in glutinous rice flour until you can knead it to a smooth soft dough.

6. Portion the filling into small round balls. Portion the dough into balls bigger than the filling balls. Use the skin dough to wrap around each filling ball. Then round them between two palms.
7. Put a sauce pot with boiling water on high heat, add rice balls and cook until the balls can float.

Any leftover filling can be kept frozen.