Recipes

Butter Mochi

Baked Goods · Desserts · Flour · Gluten Free

Butter Mochi
Prep 15 min
Cook 1 hr
Serves 24 pieces
Level Easy

The Hawaiian baked mochi cake: glutinous rice flour, coconut milk and evaporated milk, with a golden crust and a bouncy, chewy centre. Its texture is all starch — there is no gluten in it.

Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here as the showcase for one flour in the Flour section and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.

Ingredients

  • ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
  • 1 lb (454 g) mochiko (glutinous rice flour, also sold as sweet rice flour)
  • 1½ teaspoons baking powder (1 teaspoon for a slightly less fluffy cake)
  • ½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
  • 4 large eggs (about 50 g each without shell), room temperature
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 can (13½ oz) unsweetened full-fat coconut milk
  • 1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

  1. Prepare. Heat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C). Grease a 9 × 13-inch pan. Melt the butter.
  2. Dry. Whisk the mochiko, baking powder and salt together.
  3. Wet. Stir the eggs and sugar together without whipping in air, then add the coconut milk, evaporated milk, vanilla and melted butter.
  4. Combine. Add the dry ingredients and mix until there are no lumps. Pour into the pan, smooth the top, and tap out any bubbles.
  5. Bake 50–60 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean and the top is golden.
  6. Cool 30 minutes before unmoulding for clean slices (or about an hour in the pan). Cut into 24 pieces.

Notes

Source Adapted from Namiko Chen, “Butter Mochi,” Just One Cookbook. The source gives the sugar by volume only; no gram weight is invented here.

Why this flour Glutinous rice starch is almost entirely amylopectin, which sets bouncy and chewy. Ordinary (non-glutinous) rice flour would give a crumbly cake. “Glutinous” means glue-like; the flour contains no gluten.

Keeping The source gives 3 days at room temperature or 1 month frozen.

Safety Very chewy: cut it small for children and older people, as mochi is a recognised choking hazard. Contains egg and dairy.

Gluten-free by ingredient: safe for coeliac disease only if every ingredient — flour, starch, baking powder — is labelled gluten-free. Naturally gluten-free flours are often contaminated with wheat in milling.

The Flour section of the Food site covers the history, the science, milling, label systems and every flour used here.