Tag: hawaiian butter mochi
Muffins de Mochi con Misugaru

Muffins de Mochi con Misugaru

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You might be wondering why this post is named Muffins de Mochi con Misugaru.

WELL, let me tell you why…

Apparently, I’m not supposed to use the term Mochi Muffins.  It’s been trademarked.

How crazy is that?

Third Culture Bakery, out of Berkley, has trademarked mochi muffins and has been sending Cease and Desist letters to folks that have used the term mochi muffins, including small mom & pop bakeries, bloggers, Instagrammers, and AAPI-owned businesses.

The term mochi muffins, if you are Asian or Hawaiian, is pretty ubiquitous.  And yet some bozo in the government granted a trademark to Third Culture Bakery in 2018. Shame on the trademark office for not doing their due diligence and shame on Third Culture for trying to trademark a term that is descriptive for a product they did not invent.  Y’all, folks have been making mochi muffins, donuts, and cakes long before they came into existence.

The Happy Ending

It took a little while for me to post these mochi muffins and in the interim much has happened!  After more bad press and focus on the story, Third Culture Bakery re-examined its stand and relinquished the trademark.  Yay! Score one for the little guys and Subtle Asian Baking, a FB group that brought to light the trademark issue.  So now I can go back to using Mochi Muffins!

Best of Both Worlds

I love how Asian American pastry chefs have been blending Asian ingredients with French techniques and visa versa.  Croissants filled with Chinese BBQ pork or mochi, custard flavored pandan, ube snickerdoodles, I could go on and on.

So my contribution? A riff on Butter Mochi Muffins.  I added Misugaru Powder and oat milk (instead of regular milk) to my butter mochi muffins and SHAZAAM, we have a winner.

Misugaru Powder is a  Korean multigrain drink that includes different grains, rice, and beans like sweet rice, brown rice, oats, azuki beans, and sesame seeds.   You can find Misugaru at any Korean store or online.  Mixed with milk or water it is a drink with a sweet, nutty, malty flavor. Kind of like Carnation Instant Breakfast, but tastier and healthier.  I found various recipes using the powder in cookies and breads and thought, why not?

For the uninitiated, mochi is glutinous rice flour also known as sweet rice flour.  “Stuff” made with sweet rice flour has a wonderfully chewy, elastic texture, think dense but still soft marshmallows.  My first post on Mochi Muffins is by far the most popular post on 3jamigos. A staple in Asian and Hawaiian desserts,  it was only a matter of time, before it would make its way into mainstream American desserts like muffins, donuts, and brownies.  Besides being delicious and texturally so intriguing, mochi desserts are gluten-free!  Win-win.

Notes on Making Mochi Muffins

Sweet Rice Flour:  There are different mochi flours available.  Mochiko by Koda Farms is probably the most widely available and works for almost all recipes.  Asian stores will carry Thai and Korean Sweet Rice Flour in addition to Mochiko.

Milk:  Regular or 2% milk can be used in place of the oat milk. Skip the skim.  For Coconut milk, use full fat if possible.  My go-to brands are Arroy-D, Chaokoh, and Trader Joe’s (super convenient).

Butter the muffin tins generously, and use regular rice flour (not the mochi flour) to prep the pans.  If you don’t have any, skip the flour and just butter the pan.

I played with the baking temp to see if I could minimize the pointy top.  I lowered the temperature to 360 degrees on a subsequent batch and it did seem less domed.  This is appearance preference, the muffins tasted the same.

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5 from 1 vote

Misugaru Mochi Muffins

Misugaru, is a multigrained Korean beverage that adds a subtle, toasty, malty, nutty flavor to these delicious chewy mochi muffins.
Course Cake, Dessert
Cuisine Asian-American
Keyword butter mochi, Gluten free, hawaiian, misugaru, mochi muffins, muffins
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Servings 12 muffins

Ingredients

The Wet Stuff

  • 1/4 Cup Unsalted butter 55gm
  • 3/4 Cup Coconut milk 170gm
  • 1 Cup Oat Milk 240gm, You can use reg 2% milk, do not use skim
  • 2 Large Eggs

The Dry Stuff

  • 1-3/4 Cup Glutinous rice flour 225gm
  • 2 tbsp Misugaru powder
  • 1 Cup Granulated sugar 200gm
  • 1 tsp Baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt If not using sprinkling salt, increase this to 1/2 tsp

Wrapping it up

  • Butter for muffin tin
  • Fleur de Sel or Maldon Flake Salt to sprinkle
  • Shredded coconut, sweetened or unsweetened for garnish, optional
  • Black and white sesame seeds for garnish, optional

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
  • Brush the cupcake tins liberally with butter and dust with regular rice flour
  • Combine coconut milk and butter in a microwavable bowl, nuke for 1 minute on full power
  • Remove and add milk or oat milk and eggs. Whisk until combined.
  • In a medium-sized bowl combine the glutinous rice flour, sugar, salt, Misugaru powder and baking powder.
  • Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until smooth. Use a spoon or spatula instead of a whisk to minimize bubbles. The batter will be the consistency of pancake batter.
  • Pour the batter evenly into a 12-cup muffin tin. Tap gently on a counter to remove air bubbles. You will have enough batter to fill each cup 7/8 full.
  • Top with black and white sesame seeds or coconut flakes if you like, and sprinkle with Fleur de Sel or any flaked salt, bake for 40-45 minutes, or until golden brown center and dark brown edge.
  • Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes in tin, then remove to cookie rack. Allow muffins to cool completely.
  • Muffins will keep at room temp for 2-3 days. They can be frozen for longer storage.
Hawaiian Butter Mochi (Mo Buttah’ Mo Bettah’)

Hawaiian Butter Mochi (Mo Buttah’ Mo Bettah’)

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Right before the pandemic hit we capped off a year of traveling by going to Maui.  A celebration for the hubster’s birthday and his early retirement was our excuse to pack our bags and head out for some sun, fun, and food.  Little did we know it would be our last trip for quite a while.

Hawaiian Delights

I am a sucker for Hawaiian food.  A fusion of Native, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Portuguese, Korean and all of it tweaked so it taste great and is easy to eat while sitting on a beach!  Our bucket list of food included Spam Musubi, a hunk of rice topped with a fried slice of SPAM and wrapped in seaweed, Poke’ (seasoned raw fish in a bowl with rice), island style bbq, Huli, Huli Chicken. YUM.

Then there are the sweets, Malasadas (best damn donuts), Haupia (coconut jello) and my favorite, Butter Mochi. Hawaiian Butter Mochi is the island’s answer to Blondies or Brownies but better (I know, them is fighting words).  Buttery, gooey, sweet and so satisfying.  Like our Spam Musubi quest, we went out of our way to find all things mochi.

This isn’t my first mochi rodeo, I posted a Butter Mochi Muffin recipe a while back that peeps really like (so says Google analytics, lol).  Since then it has been off to the “rices” trying recipes with Koda Farms Sweet Rice (glutinous rice flour).  Mochi now merits its own category in my recipe index.  These muffins started it all, dense, chewy, with a touch of familiar cakiness, and the perfect amount of sugar. They are a great introduction to mochi-based desserts.  BONUS: Mochi is gluten-free!

Butter Mochi Muffins
The Muffins that started it all!

Mochi Mania-Island Style

Hawaiian Butter Mochi takes mochi back closer to its Japanese roots, lighter, springier, and less cakey.  The recipe calls for coconut milk and regular milk.  The regular milk and less mochi flour are the “denseness” buster and gives the mochi its characteristic texture.  Butter adds flavor.  It is usually baked in a pan and then cut into squares but I decided to bake them in muffin tins.  All for the edges folks.  Each person ends up with their own gooeylicious mini-cake highlighted by a crispy, buttery edge, and finished with toasty shredded coconut and a sprinkle of Fleur de Sel, soooooo yummy.

Inspired by Aloha Kitchen and the website Catherine Zhang, these Butter Mochi Mini-Cakes are onolicious.  I hope you will try them!

The two key ingredients you can find at most Asian stores, sweet rice flour and coconut milk. My go-to brands are Koda Farms Mochiko and Chaokoh or Arroy-D for coconut milk.

The batter will be very pourable due to the use of milk as part of the liquid and less mochi flour.

Don’t be afraid to fill the cups to 7/8.  The mini-cakes will puff up but will fall as they are cooling.  You will end up with a flat top or sometimes even a slight depression, it’s all good.

Enjoy!

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5 from 1 vote

Hawaiian Butter Mochi Muffins

This muffin is a mash-up of Hawaiian Butter Mochi and Butter Mochi Muffins! Gooier and less cake-like than my butter mochi muffins. Baked as muffins they have crispy edges and a soft center-onolicious!
Course Dessert, Snack
Cuisine Asian, Fusion
Keyword butter mochi, hawaiian, Mochi, muffin
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

Da Wet Stuff

  • 1/4 cup Unsalted butter 55gm
  • 3/4 cup Coconut milk 170gm
  • 1 cup Whole milk 240gm
  • 2 Eggs

Da Dry Stuff

  • 1 3/4 cup Glutinous rice flour 225gm
  • 1 cup Granulated sugar 200gm
  • 1 tsp Baking powder
  • Flaked or shredded coconut for garnish, preferably unsweetened but use what you like

Prep Yo Pan

  • Butter
  • Rice flour optional

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
  • Generously grease 12-cup muffin tin with butter and dust with rice flour, if you don't have rice flour, skip it. The flour does help the batter rise in the pan and getting crispy edges.
  • In a large, microwave safe bowl combine the coconut milk and butter, heat in the microwave for 1 minute
  • Add the milk and 2 eggs, whisk until combined. I like whole milk but you can use 2% milk or alternative milk like oat milk.
  • In a medium sized bowl combine the glutinous rice flour, sugar and baking powder
  • Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk until smooth
  • Pour the batter evenly into the 12 muffin cups
  • Sprinkle with coconut and bake for 45 minutes, or until golden brown
  • Remove and cool. Muffins will keep for a couple of days on the counter. Pop them in a toaster oven to re-crisp edges. They also freeze pretty well.