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Hee Pan is a type of sweet tasting steamed rice cake of Chinese origin from the Hakka people. Traditional Hakka hee pan is made from rice milk (米浆) and red sugar. This gives Hee pan its distinctive red coloring and its chewy texture.

The traditional red Hee pan is considered to be an auspicious item as it is believed to bring prosperity, luck, and fortune to the people. It is traditionally prepared during important festivals such as Lunar Chinese New Year, weddings and more.

In the present day, hee pan is still considered as an important food item during Chinese festivals especially in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Thailand. However, the consumption of hee pan is no longer restricted to cultural festivities. It can be consumed throughout the day without confinement of specific meal times as it is commonly seen and sold in bakeries and traditional pastry shops.

Etymology
Hee Pan is the romanization of "喜粄" from the Chinese language in pinyin form the word "喜" (Hee) is pronounced as "xǐ", it means joyful. The word “粄 " (Pan), pronounced as "bǎn" is a cognate of the old Chinese language, Hakka dialect and the Hainanese dialect. The cognate "粄" (Pan) have a word structure that reflects its auto-logical  meaning.  The "principal indexing component "粄" (Pan) is "米", pronounced as "mǐ". It is a noun in the Chinese language to describe "raw rice grains". The radical component of "粄" (Pan) is “反”, derived from the word "饭" “fàn”, means rice or a meal in the Chinese language. "粄" (Pan) congruent to its auto-logical structure, it means meals made from rice or rice cakes.

Together, Hee Pan is a portmanteau of "喜" and “粄 " that means "Joyful rice cake".

Traditional Hee Pan
Traditional Hee Pan is made with only rice and red sugar and steamed over a piece of banana leaf. The banana leaves allows the steam to penetrate through the Hee Pan, this adds natural fragrance to the Hee Pan. Traditional Hee Pan is made by:
 * Grounding the rice into finely milled rice milk
 * Sieving the rice milk through a cloth to filter excess liquid
 * Set the sieved rice milk to ferment for about 11 hours
 * Add traditional red sugar into the fermented rice milk, with sugar to milk ratio of 0.8: 1
 * Knead the fermented rice milk into a dough and shape it into equal portions
 * Steaming the portions over boiling water on a piece of banana leaf

Modern day Hee Pan
The modern day hee pan is made from flour, glutinous rice flou r, pandan leaves, hot water, sugar, instant yeast, red yeast rice powder, corn oil and banana leaves. The dough of the modern day hee pan recipe is a mixture of eaily ready ingredients, as the traditional method of making Hee Pan takes prior planning. Banana leaves are coated with oil to make the Hee Pan more fragrant than the traditional recipe. The red coloring of the modern day hee pan is from the red yeast rice powder.

Modern day Hee Pan is made by:


 * Boiling the pandan leaves with sugar to make sugar syrup
 * mixing the sugar syrup with flour, glutinous rice flour, red yeast rice powder, and instant yeast.
 * Kneading the ingredients into a dough with corn oil
 * Shaping the dough into portions and coat it with oil
 * Placing the portions on oil coated banana leaves into a bamboo steamer
 * Proofing the dough in the bamboo steamer over warm water for about 30 minutes
 * Steaming the proofed hee pan for 12 minutes
 * Leave the lid of the bamboo steamer open to allow it to cool.



Bamboo Steamer
Bamboo steamers are traditionally used to steam the Hee Pan, it is still in use in the present day to steam the hee pans.

Bamboo steamers are preferred to be used to steam because the structure of the bamboo steamer is airtight. It prevents condensations of water from dripping onto the Hee Pan, preserving it's the original taste and texture of the hee pan.

Variations
Many bakeries in Malaysia and Singapore have innovated and added new ingredients to create new variants of the traditional hee pan. Aiming to cater to all tastes, variations of the traditional hee pan to sweet potato and pandan flavour is also available.

Pumpkin Hee Pan

The pumpkin hee pan has the same basis as a traditional hee pan. Instead of flavoring the hee pan with red sugar, it is flavored with steamed diced pumpkin and pandan leaves. This addition of steamed pumpkin and pandan leaves to the dough creates a naturally bright yellow color and a pumpkin fragrant.[19]

Brown sugar Hee Pan The brown sugar Hee Pan is flavored with brown sugar along with a spoon of baking soda. The addition of baking soda aids the rising of the hee pan dough as it neutralizes the acidity of dark brown sugar.[20]

Purple sweet potato Hee Pan

The dough of the purple sweet potato Hee Pan is flavored with steamed purple sweet potato instead of the traditional red sugar. This addition of the sweet potato gives the hee pan its natural purple color and fragrance and taste.

Origin
Hee pan originated from the rice cake tradition of the Hakka people who migrated from Zhong Yuan 中原, northern area of China to the southern China during the Jin and Wei dynasties.

The Hakka people were called "guests, gypsies, nomads" due to their constant migration due to the outbreak of the Disaster of Yongjia. As a consequence of the migration south, the majority of the hakka people settled in Meizhou prefecture city in Guangdong province. Meizhou is traditionally an agricultural city, harvesting mainly rice and glutinous rice crops since Tang dynasty.

The traditional Hakka cuisine from Zhongyuan is mainly based on wheat. However, it was not feasible to grow wheat in Meizhou. Therefore, in hopes of replicating and remaking the olden Hakka Zhong yuan cuisine, the Hakka people in Meizhou applied the same making technique to rice and glutinous rice. As a result, hee pan and the Hakka rice cake tradition is created.

Hakka cuisine is distinctive in preserving the original taste of the ingredients used while innovating and making a cuisine out of it.

The first account of Hee pan is from the Jin and Wei dynasties. Along with the rise of the popularity of traditional Hakka rice cakes, the hee pan is more commonly seen throughout the Tang and Song dynasties.

Importance in Culture
In Hakka and Chinese culture, the color red is historically symbolic of prosperity, luck, and longevity. As such, the traditional red hee pans are of high cultural significance and value amongst the Chinese people. The red color in the traditional hee pan symbolizes good fortune and happiness. The hee pans are typically associated with auspicious occasions and are prepared during festivities to symbolize blessings and good fortune.

Lunar Chinese New Year
Lunar Chinese New Year is an important festival in Chinese culture. It represents the start of a new year and new beginnings for everyone, where people reconcile and families reunite in harmony. During the first day of this festival, hee pan is offered to honor ancestors and deities on ritual altars. The Hakka people believe that the sweetness from the hee pan offerings will leave a sweet taste in the mouth of the deities and ancestors and so they will answer their prayers and bless the people with a prosperous year ahead.

Hee pan is also traditionally enjoyed throughout the Lunar Chinese New year festival. In the Hakka culture, the sweetness of the Hee Pan represents the "sweet fruits of labor" and it is believed that the consumption of hee pan during Lunar Chinese New Year will bring a blessed and "sweet" year ahead.

Qing Ming Festival
Qing Ming Festival is a 2,500-year-old tradition where the Chinese people visits the burial sites of their ancestors to sweep their tombs, pay respect and to commemorate their ancestors. To commemorate and show respect for the ancestors, prayers are conducted with tea and food such as hee pan is prepared as offerings to the ancestors. Unlike the usual red hee pan, the hee pan prepared for Qing Ming festival is in the color green, made with the addition of wormwood. Green hee pans are prepared as offerings because it is believed to symbolize the descendants grief and their prayers that their ancestors are coping well in the afterlife.

Aside from being an offering, the green Hee pan is also traditionally consumed during Qing Ming festival. It is believed that the consumption of the green hee pan before and after tomb sweeping service will bring great health and blessings from the ancestors for the upcoming four seasons of the year.

Full month party
In the Chinese customs, a full month celebration is held when a baby turns one month old in the Gregorian calendar, which equates to the baby turning a year old in the Lunar calendar. The ceremony is a tradition held to celebrate the baby's first month of life as is historically hard for babies to live over a month old. The traditional red hee pan is distributed to family and friends during this time to celebrate this blessing of the survival of the baby and also to pray for vitality, luck and blessings for a long life for the child.

Wedding ceremony
In Chinese culture, wedding ceremonies are held the whole day. One of the ceremonies among the various ceremonies held is a tea ceremony. This is where the bride and groom greets the respective future in-laws and future family with tea. During the tea ceremony, the traditional red hee pan is often served at the side for family and relatives. Hee pan is served as the red color in the hee pan is believed to ward off evil. At the same time, it also symbolizes vitality, fertility and blessings for a long successful marriage.

Economical aspect
Hee Pan is filling and economical to produce as it is traditionally made out of two ingredients consisting of sugar and "米浆" (rice milk). The Hee Pan also have a long shelf life as it can be kept longer than cooked rice. Consequently, hee pan gained popularity over time and became an integral type of rice cake in the Hakka food culture.

Availability
Hee pan is traditionally prepared at home during significant cultural festivities. Nowadays, hee pan has become a popular snack. It is commonly made and bought from bakeries and traditional pastry shops for cultural festivities and cravings. This is because the preparation of hee pan is time-consuming, more and more Chinese families living in cities have gradually replaced the tradition of making hee pan at home with store-bought alternatives.