Vegan Black Sesame Butter Mochi
Aloha friends! I hope you're having a wonderful week. This last year, I’ve been traveling through Asia, spending some time in Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong. It’s been an amazing experience! While I loved it, one thing I really miss is coconut milk. It is one of my favorite ingredients; creamy and versatile. They don’t use it as much, so I ended up developing a huge craving for anything with coconut milk. One of my favorite desserts is butter mochi. When I could, I whipped up a batch for a house party.
What is butter mochi?
Butter mochi is a rice flour-based dessert that draws inspiration from Filipino bibingka. It is quite popular in Hawai'i! If I had to choose between this and a brownie, I'm definitely going for the mochi. It is dense, sticky, chewy, and soft, with a crisp crust. In Hawai'i, butter mochi is traditionally made with eggs. In this recipe, we will substitute eggs with silken tofu, aquafaba, and some extra baking powder. If this sounds strange to you, I'll break it down: eggs have a variety of properties, and most of these can be found in plant-based ingredients.
Aquafaba - aka chickpea brine. This has properties similar to egg whites. It can be whipped up into meringue.
Silken Tofu - silken tofu has a custardy texture and provides protein & fat to the batter.
Baking Powder - this is a chemical leavener, and will add additional lift to the batter that eggs would provide.
Why Black Sesame?
While we were in Japan and Korea, black sesame showed up everywhere: pastries, drinks, ice cream, you name it. It quickly became one of my favorite flavors to cook with on this trip. So once I got my hands on coconut milk again, I knew exactly what I wanted to pair it with. You can find black sesame paste at most Asian grocery stores.
Black sesame paste brings a deep, nutty flavor that works really well with the rice flour and coconut milk base. It also adds a little extra fat to the batter, so I dialed back the coconut oil slightly to balance it out.
Let's get into the recipe!
Tips for the best butter mochi
Use full-fat coconut milk - Light coconut milk will leave you with a thinner, less custardy texture. Save the light stuff for another recipe.
Blend the tofu until totally smooth - Any lumps you skip now will show up in the end, and you don’t want that!
Don’t be afraid of overmixing - This is a gluten-free recipe due to the rice flour, so overmixing will not cause you problems like other bakes.
Let it cool completely before cutting - Mochi needs time to set; cutting it warm turns your squares into a sticky mess. Resist!
Oil your knife between cuts - mochi is sticky by nature, so a quick wipe of oil or cooking spray on your knife gives you much cleaner squares.
Using a glass pan? Lean toward the longer bake time - glass holds heat differently than metal, so check it closer to the 75-minute mark rather than 60.
Store at room temp, not the fridge - like most mochi desserts, refrigeration firms it up fast and you lose that chewy texture. It keeps for about a few days covered at room temperature.
Toast your sesame seeds right before using - pre-toasted seeds lose their punch sitting around. A quick 2-3 minutes in a dry pan makes a real difference.
Ingredients
Dry:
1lb mochiko rice flour
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
Wet:
1 can (13.5 oz) full-fat coconut milk
1 cup silken tofu
¼ cup melted coconut oil or vegan butter
⅓ cup aquafaba
1 tsp vanilla extract
⅓ cup unsweetened black sesame paste
Topping:
2 tbsp toasted black sesame seeds
2 tbsp coconut flakes
Flaky salt (optional)
Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F (177°C) and grease a 9x13-inch pan.
Blend the wet ingredients together until completely smooth. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the mochiko, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry and whisk until smooth. The batter will be thin. It will thicken up significantly once it cooks.
Pour into your prepared pan, scatter the toasted sesame seeds, coconut flakes, and flaky salt on top. Bake for 60–75 minutes, until the top is set and a toothpick comes out clean.
Let it cool completely before cutting.
Mahalo!
