The one you talked about is called: “9th Layers Cake” 『九層糕』and the ingredients are rice noodles, 『澄麵粉 』, Chinese brown sugar and with red dates or sesames on the top of the last layer. You still can buy it at some old traditional bakery stores in Chinatown all year round. As far as I know, there’s one on Grand Street, between Bowery and Chystie Streets; the other one is on Mott Street, close to Pell Street. However, they all only make them as 7th layers instead 9th layers because it takes more time to finish one cake.

It’s also one of the “Nian Gao” 『年糕』for the Chinese New year. My mother makes many kinds of “Nian Gao” in the New Year Eve, such as the general one for both southern and northern part of Chinese which mentioned by Kian; “9th Layers Cake”『九層糕』; “Radish (Turnip) Cake”『蘿蔔糕』and others. She also makes them when she likes to eat or when we requested. They are not hard to make, but only the “9th Layers Cake” needs time and patient to finish each layer.

These are the Cantonese ( in fact, it should be called Toishanese) style New Year cakes “nian gao”.

Toishan (台山) is one of the city of GuangDong (廣東省 Canton).

Kian – thanks for the blog. I’ve been trying to find out how to make some of my childhood favorites, and it looks like you’re the answer.

Happy ‘Niu’ Year! It is my first visit to your blog and have already bookmarked it. I am most excited to find a blog by a trained chef on traditional Chinese dishes using ingredients in America. I’m looking forward to learning lots from your blog!

Once my mother made such a sticky new year cake that it would not set up. We wound chunks of it on chopsticks and ate it like fair food on a stick.