Ube pistachio rice cakes
For the past month or so, I have traveled and stayed with a friend abroad. Every time this happens, I go home with some new food ingredients. As I expected this happened once again, and it resulted in these vegan ube pistachio rice cakes.
This is also one of those situations where I wanted to use up some ingredients from my kitchen that have been sitting there for some time. I don’t like to throw food away.
I have lost count of the mochi and mochi-like recipe that I made in the past years, but I am not even embarrassed anymore. They are worth the effort and I love them. This one ended up being a sweet, nutty, chewy, pretty colored dessert.
In other news, this is just one of the things I plan on making with this ube powder of mine, so if you think that purple desserts looks fun, stay tuned.
A piece of advice
I know that these cakes look kind of complicated, but in reality they are super simple and easy to make. But in case you struggle with certain things, I am here to help you as much as I can.
First of all I have to say – do NOT use only regular rice flour! Use only glutinous (sweet) rice flour. This should be written on the packaging, but if you are still not sure, look for a letter G somewhere on the packaging. If you use any other flour you will not get sticky and soft cakes like these.
Make sure your dough is covered with a kitchen towel when you are not using it, otherwise it might dry out. I used ube powder to get this purple color, but you don’t have to do that, they can just remain white. This powder does not really contribute much to the taste and is kind of difficult to find. I looked for it in Asian food stores for quite a while.
I did not add any sugar into the actual dough. I thought it may be a bit much since I was about to dip them into plum sauce. But it is really optional. You can use maple syrup instead or just add a bit of sugar to the dough.
Also, if you (like myself) don’t have an actual steamer, you can improvise. I took a sieve with larger holes, lined it with parchment paper and put it in a large pot of water. Make sure the water is not touching the bottom of the sieve. When the water starts to boil cover the pot with a lid.
Or you can improvise in any way you want, main thing is, these cakes should be steamed and not cooked in water. When you place the cakes in the steamer basket, make sure you leave some space between them. They will slightly grow and you don’t want them to stick together.
These measurements make about six ube pistachio rice cakes.
Ube pistachio rice cakes
Ingredients
- For the filling:
60 g of raw pistachios
20 g of powdered sugar
Water
- For the dough:
100 g of glutinous rice flour
25 g of regular rice flour
110 ml of water
1 tbsp of oil
2-3 tsp of ube powder (optional)
Plum sauce (optional)
Directions
- Start off by making the pistachio filling. Soak the raw pistachios in hot water for at least an hour. Drain them, add the powdered sugar. Transfer everything in the blender and blend until you get a sort of a pistachio paste. Set aside. Next we’re going to make the rice dough.
- Mix the two rice flours and ube powder in one large bowl. Make sure there are no powder lumps left. Add 105 ml of water and 1 tbsp of oil into the bowl and mix well. Take it out on a flat surface and knead the dough for about 2 minutes. It should be soft but not too sticky. Cover it with a kitchen towel and set aside.
- Cut the parchment paper into 6 small pieces. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces, roll each of them into a ball. Flatten each piece with the palm of your hand and shape it into a tiny bowl. Put a spoon of the pistachio filling in the middle of the dough and pinch the dough shut around the filling. Roll the rice cake around in your palms to get a smooth surface and better shape.
- When you are done, place each ube pistachio rice cake on a square of parchment paper. Line the steamer basket* with some parchment paper and place the rice cakes in it, but make sure there is some space left between them. Put a lid on your steamer and steam for 8 minutes on medium temperature. Serve the ube pistachio rice cakes while they are still warm with some plum sauce.
Notes
- *You can improvise a steamer by placing sieve in a pot of water and covering it with a lid. Make sure the water does not touch the bottom of a sieve.
If you liked this recipe, make sure you check out my other recipes like:
Feel free to tell me what you think about this in the comments below, or send me the pictures of your own ube pistachio rice cakes. If you did something differently, I would also like to hear that, I’d love to see the things you come up with.
P.S. for more recipes like this and a bunch of other stuff, follow me on Instagram, @margo_drobi.
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