A couple months ago Cynthia Chen McTernan from Two Red Bowls released her cookbook called The Common Table and let me tell you its great! It has plenty of traditional asian recipes, some that are not so traditional, along with some great stories throughout the book! When I first got her cookbook I ran through it and marked all the pages that I really wanted to make. One of these recipes was her sesame mocha cake!
I had a neighbor who would always made me her mocha cake recipe that was filled in the middle with red bean paste. It wasn't too sweet, super glutinous, chewy, and wasn't overwhelming with any flavor. She made them only once a year but she would always give my family around half the tray. Of course, we would devour it and then crave for more. Luckily, she gave my mom the recipe who gave it to me. So maybe one day...(one day very soon) I will try out her recipe and see if they taste any different!
But going to back to Cynthia's recipe I tried it out, I changed the toppings, and I loved it! I wanted to make it without the peanut butter that the original recipe called for and go a more traditional route. I added honey and sesame seeds! My mom told me to use a chinese brown sugar which is way more traditional but it came in big blocks and I forgot to melt it with the milk so I went with honey instead. It added a great light brown color, a very nice floral taste,
and the sesames got toasted in the oven bringing out its nutty oils... yummy right?!
sesame honey mochi cake
Makes 16 mochi squares
ingredients:
2 Tablespoons confectioners sugar
1 1/2 Cups of sweet rice flour
1 cup of whole milk
3/4 cups of honey
1/2 cup of vegetable oil/ neutral oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup of sesame seeds
instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a 8-inch baking dish with parchment paper.
In a small bowl combine the confectioners sugar, rice flour, milk, honey, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla extract. Don't worry about over mixing because the batter because it doesn't contain any gluten!
Pour the batter into the prepared dish and bake for 20 minutes.
Once the 20 minutes are up, take out the dish and sprinkle on the sesame seeds. Throw the dish back into the oven for another 20 minutes. It should be bounce back when pressed.
Eat it while it's warm or at room temperature. Cynthia & I agree that having a warm piece of mochi is the best thing.