Dear Mom and Dad,
I still haven’t been to Hawaii yet, but this Hawaiian butter mochi recipe caught my eye. It’s a buttery and chewy coconut dessert that I thought you’d like as well since you’re both such fans of coconut flavours.
I showed it to Laura and she said it’s like nian gao that we make during Chinese New Year. I suppose every culture has their own version of a glutinous rice flour cake! I do appreciate the osthmanthus flavoured nian goa you two make for me. Or the ones we fry and scramble with eggs, yum!
Butter Mochi
Recipe adapted from Aloha Kitchen
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups skim milk
One 1-pound box Mochiko sweet rice flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, melted
14 ounce can coconut milk
½ cup sweetened shredded coconut
A few pinches of flaky salt
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 by 13-inch baking pan with butter.
- Gently whisk the eggs, vanilla extract, and skim milk together. I did this by hand because in this video, Alana Kysar said it would incorporate less air bubbles in it. I don’t usually have skim milk at home, but I do have to agree when Alana says this is already a very rich dessert, we don’t need the fat from my usual 2% milk!
- Add the box of sweet rice flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Here, I did use the stand mixer to get it all nicely combined.
- Then, as the mixer is on the lowest speed, pour in the melted butter until incorporated. Then the coconut milk (the original recipe calls for less). Once it’s all mixed in, pour it into the baking pan.
- Give the baking pan a few raps on the table to make any air bubbles rise to the surface and pop them away with a fork, skewer, or toothpick.
- The original recipe calls for unsweetened shredded coconut, but I only had sweetened and I didn’t find it overly sweet. The flaky salt really helps with that. So you sprinkle both the shredded coconut and salt over the time. Making sure they don’t sink into the batter.
- Bake for 1 hour, the coconut will be nice and golden and the edges of the mochi will come away from the pan. That’s how you know it’s ready.
- Let it cool completely before cutting into it. It’ll be sticky, so you can oil your knife or wipe it down clean each time you cut.
It wasn’t easy to find boxes of Mochiko, it wasn’t at Galleria. I ended up finding it at Sunny Supermarket and Bestco Fresh Food Mart.
The batter looks so rich and creamy!
I was originally going to make coconut macaroons with my Costco-sized bag of shredded coconut, but now I’m way more into the mochi!
It looks like cheese!
Tastes nothing like a cheesy casserole of course. Just delicious coconut chewiness! The corners and edges are the best because they’re crispy. I stored it in an airtight container and found that the crispiness went away the next day. So keep that in mind if you’re serving it the next day. I hear you can also reheat it for more yumminess.
Now that I’ve tested this out, I can’t wait to make you one!
Sincerely,
Syl
Sincerely, Syl 