Easy Everyday Butter Mochi

Butter mochi is a popular dessert/snack in Hawaii. It’s essentially a pan cake made with glutinous rice flour, making it dense and chewy. There are endless variations on butter mochi – you’ll just have to try them all to find your favorite. Bonus: butter mochi is gluten free!

The Easiest Butter Mochi Ingredients

I hesitated to post this recipe, because it seems like there are thousands of butter mochi recipes on the internet these days. Does the world really need another one? I guess my answer is yes, because here we are.

It is my firm belief that no butter mochi recipe is really better than another. Sometimes you want it more chewy. Sometimes you want it more cakey. And sometimes you want it more custardy. There’s a butter mochi recipe for every occasion! I have several butter mochi recipes that I have on rotation, but many of them use evaporated milk, which is not something I always have on hand. I decided to try and recreate my favorite butter mochi texture with more common ingredients, and voila. My everyday butter mochi recipe was born. If it’s your first time making butter mochi, this recipe would be a great place to start.

By the way, the ingredients listed below are for an 8×8″ baking pan. Normally, I make butter mochi in a 9×13″ pan, which uses a whole can of coconut milk and a whole box of mochiko. These days I’m trying not to gorge myself on mochi, so I scaled it down for a more manageable size. But if it bothers you to have half a can and half a box of ingredients leftover, by all means, double the recipe.

Where to Buy Mochiko?

These days I’m seeing mochiko everywhere – even at Safeway and Walmart! But of course, you can definitely get it at a Japanese market. Other Asian markets probably have mochiko as well.

If this is your first foray into mochi recipes, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take note: you HAVE to buy mochiko, which is a type of glutinous rice flour. You CANNOT use other rice flours. They are made from a different type of rice.

You also cannot even use other rice flours made from glutinous rice. Did you know that? There are other types of flours made from the same rice as mochi, but they are milled more or less finely. This has a drastic change on the end texture of your dessert! So make sure you buy mochiko. I always get Koda Farms Blue Star Mochiko, which is the most common brand I see in America. If all else fails, you can always find it on Amazon.

The History of Butter Mochi

Is there any definitive documentation on the origins of butter mochi? Certainly the popularity of butter mochi on the mainland is due to its popularity in Hawaii. But like many foods we now associate with Hawaii, butter mochi was probably originally brought there in some form from another culture. I see many recipes attribute butter mochi to Japanese immigration to Hawaii, given mochi’s prominence in Japanese cuisine. I also see many comparisons between butter mochi and bibingka, from the Philippines. It doesn’t seem like anybody really knows for sure who first invented butter mochi, or if multiple cultures had their own versions simultaneously.

What I do know is that butter mochi is DANG GOOD. So yes, you do need another butter mochi recipe in your repertoire. You can never have too many.

More Hawaiian Butter Mochi Variations

If you like this butter mochi and are looking for more flavor variations, take a look at my chocolate butter mochi and custard mochi recipes as well. Looking for a Hawaiian mochi recipe that is dairy free? Try making chi chi dango.