When The New York Times Magazine ran an article with a recipe for Brown Butter Mochi right before Passover, I decided they would be a good Passover treat for the office. I like mochi but haven't made them baked into mini-cake shapes before.
I always prefer to use weights over volume measurements for baking and I started setting up my mis en place using the ingredient weights in the recipe. Before I started mixing things together, I realized something was very wrong. Now the online version of the recipe calls for 3.75 cups/21 ounces of mochiko flour, but at the time I made this recipe a few weeks ago, the recipe said 3.75 cups/30 ounces. Thirty ounces of mochiko glutinous rice flour is way more than 3.75 cups. I realized that what looked like weight measurements in the recipe were actually liquid volume measurements (i.e., one cup of liquid is 8 fluid ounces, so 3.75 cups of a liquid would be equal to 30 fluid ounces).
The New York Times doesn't normally list dry ingredient quantities this way and it's a good thing they don't, because it's incredibly confusing. I measured out the dry ingredients and weighed them for my own future reference; 3.75 cups of rice flour weighed 550 grams (less than 19.5 ounces) and two packed cups of dark brown sugar weighed 320 grams (about 11.25 ounces; the recipe says 16 ounces, which is the liquid volume equivalent of two cups). Anyway, once I had all of the ingredients measured out properly, the recipe was easy. You brown a stick of butter and then add evaporated milk, coconut milk, dark brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. In another bowl you combine mochiko flour, baking powder, and salt. Then you pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ones and whisk until smooth. You scoop the batter into buttered cupcake tins and bake.
This recipe yields 24 cakes so I baked two cupcake tins of cakes at once; one on a lower rack and one on an upper rack in the oven, switching the position of the pans halfway through baking. The two pans baked very differently. The ones that had started out on the bottom rack rose straight up with level tops like little hockey pucks (e.g., the cake on the left in the back in the photo above). The ones that started out on the top rack ended up with rounded domes, like a muffin (e.g., the other two cakes in the photo). Both shapes tasted the same.
These cakes were like a hybrid of cake and mochi -- cakelike on the outside and chewy and mochi-like in the center. I would have preferred a darker and crustier exterior for more texture contrast. The cakes had a caramel-y flavor from the browned butter and dark brown sugar; I couldn't taste the coconut milk. While I thought these cakes were tasty and I enjoyed them quite a bit, I don't know that I like them better than a regular butter mochi, which is chewy throughout. I can say that these didn't remind me whatsoever of a canelé, which has an audibly crisp exterior and a custardy center. But they were a hit with my tasters and I thought they were a great gluten-free dessert.
Recipe: "Brown Butter Mochi" from The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
I always prefer to use weights over volume measurements for baking and I started setting up my mis en place using the ingredient weights in the recipe. Before I started mixing things together, I realized something was very wrong. Now the online version of the recipe calls for 3.75 cups/21 ounces of mochiko flour, but at the time I made this recipe a few weeks ago, the recipe said 3.75 cups/30 ounces. Thirty ounces of mochiko glutinous rice flour is way more than 3.75 cups. I realized that what looked like weight measurements in the recipe were actually liquid volume measurements (i.e., one cup of liquid is 8 fluid ounces, so 3.75 cups of a liquid would be equal to 30 fluid ounces).
The New York Times doesn't normally list dry ingredient quantities this way and it's a good thing they don't, because it's incredibly confusing. I measured out the dry ingredients and weighed them for my own future reference; 3.75 cups of rice flour weighed 550 grams (less than 19.5 ounces) and two packed cups of dark brown sugar weighed 320 grams (about 11.25 ounces; the recipe says 16 ounces, which is the liquid volume equivalent of two cups). Anyway, once I had all of the ingredients measured out properly, the recipe was easy. You brown a stick of butter and then add evaporated milk, coconut milk, dark brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. In another bowl you combine mochiko flour, baking powder, and salt. Then you pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ones and whisk until smooth. You scoop the batter into buttered cupcake tins and bake.
These cakes were like a hybrid of cake and mochi -- cakelike on the outside and chewy and mochi-like in the center. I would have preferred a darker and crustier exterior for more texture contrast. The cakes had a caramel-y flavor from the browned butter and dark brown sugar; I couldn't taste the coconut milk. While I thought these cakes were tasty and I enjoyed them quite a bit, I don't know that I like them better than a regular butter mochi, which is chewy throughout. I can say that these didn't remind me whatsoever of a canelé, which has an audibly crisp exterior and a custardy center. But they were a hit with my tasters and I thought they were a great gluten-free dessert.
Recipe: "Brown Butter Mochi" from The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
- "Chew on This!: Butter Mochi," February 21, 2013.
- "Minding My Beeswax: Canelés," June 18, 2014.
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