Musubi Makers
Other Hawaiian dishes

Butter mochi

Chewy, buttery, and rich, baked in a pan from mochiko and coconut milk and cut into squares. It lands somewhere between a cake and a piece of mochi, and it is at every potluck for a reason: it is easy, and everybody loves it.

chewy, golden, crisp edges

What it is

Butter mochi is a baked dessert made from mochiko, which is sweet or glutinous rice flour, mixed with coconut milk, butter, sugar, and eggs, then baked until golden. It comes out dense and chewy in the middle with slightly crisp edges, and you cut it into squares. It is not fussy, there is no dough to pound or steam like regular mochi. You just mix and bake.

A short history

Nobody knows exactly who made the first butter mochi, but it is a true melting-pot dessert from the plantation era. It brings together three traditions that all landed in Hawaii: Japanese mochi-making with sweet rice flour, Portuguese butter-and-egg baking, and the Filipino coconut rice cake called bibingka. Those threads got folded into one easy pan, and recipes for it turn up in handwritten community cookbooks all over the islands going back generations.

How to make it at home

The one rule that matters: let it cool all the way before you cut it. Warm butter mochi is gummy, but once it sets up it slices into clean, chewy squares.

Butter mochi

Makes one 9x13 pan

You need

  • 1 box (1 lb) mochiko (sweet rice flour)
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
  • 1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Steps

  1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and butter a 9x13 pan.
  2. Whisk the mochiko, sugar, and baking powder together in a big bowl.
  3. In another bowl, whisk the coconut milk, evaporated milk, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla.
  4. Pour the wet into the dry and whisk until smooth. Pour into the pan.
  5. Bake about 1 hour, until the top is golden and set. Cool completely, then cut into squares.

Bring a pan to your next potluck with some spam musubi, or see the rest of the Hawaiian favorites.

Where I read up on this