If pumpkin pie and butter mochi had a baby, it would be this pumpkin butter mochi! A gluten free snack flavored with real pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spices, this baked mochi cake is perfect for fall. Recipe updated in 2023.
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Every year I feel like pumpkin spice latte season starts earlier and earlier. I’m a summer forever kind of person, but I do love myself some pumpkin treats, so I meet fall and the onslaught of pumpkin-themed sweets with bittersweet feelings. This pumpkin mochi recipe, however, is anything but. It’s like pumpkin pie crossed with butter mochi: dense, chewy, and very pumpkin-y. Plus, it’s gluten free! If you’re looking for a fall pumpkin dessert that’s not your run-of-the-mill pie or bread, you’ve come to the right place.
What is Butter Mochi?
Butter mochi is a baked mochi cake from Hawai’i. Made from mochiko, which is a glutinous rice flour, butter mochi is typically baked in a 9×13″ dish and cut into squares. It’s dense, chewy, and great for potlucks. No one knows exactly who invented butter mochi, but it likely was borne from the huge wave of Japanese and Filipino immigration to Hawai’i in the 1800s, my own great- great- grandparents being among them!
If you’re new to all things mochi, go take a look at my Ultimate Guide to Mochi to learn more about the names of different mochi desserts.
What Makes This Pumpkin Mochi Different
Recently butter mochi has gotten really popular among the internet. Every big food blog seems to have a butter mochi recipe with a plethora of flavor variations.
My recipe was adapted from an old Japanese church cookbook from the church my family used to attend when I was a kid in California. That means it’s been passed on by an older generation of Japanese aunties and is therefore guaranteed to be delicious.
Recipe Update
Although I loved the original recipe, I did make a few tweaks recently. For one, I decreased the sugar by half a cup. Everyone’s trying to consume less sugar right?
Additionally, the original recipe called for only a can of sweetened condensed milk, melted butter, and four eggs as the liquid ingredients aside from the pumpkin itself. However, mochiko is really absorbent and can handle a lot of added liquid. I decided to update the recipe with the addition of a can of evaporated milk. The extra liquid makes the butter mochi super moist, dense, and more mochi-like. It’s like eating the pumpkin pie filling in mochi form!
My husband, on the other hand, liked the drier, cakier butter mochi recipe better. So if that’s you, you can stick with the original recipe and omit the evaporated milk.
Pumpkin Mochi Ingredient Substitutions and Where to Buy Them
A frequent question I get is where to buy mochiko. I can find it at my local Japanese grocery store, of course, but recently I can even find it at our local Safeway. Of course you can always buy it off Amazon.
As for the pumpkin puree, you can find cans and cans of it lining grocery stores come fall, at least in America. Except for that one year where there was a pumpkin shortage. May that never happen again.
If you live in a place where canned pumpkin puree is hard to get, you could also make it from scratch. You can cook pumpkin or another squash in the microwave until it’s soft, scoop and toss out the insides, then slice it and cut off the outer skin. Mash up the insides, and you got the pumpkin puree! That’s how I cook the kabocha in my creamy kabocha soup.
A note about pumpkin: I find that some brands of canned pumpkin have way more liquid than others. You may want to adjust the amount of liquid in the recipe depending on how wet or dry your pumpkin puree is. Read the recipe update above on ways you can either add or remove liquid from the recipe.
How to Make Pumpkin Butter Mochi
Making this recipe couldn’t be any easier. You mix all the ingredients together and then bake.
THAT’S IT! REALLY!
Some things to watch out for: definitely make sure the mochi is cooked through the middle before you take it out! It will take at least an hour, but everyone’s ovens are different. The more liquid added, the longer it takes to bake.
And be sure to leave enough time for the butter mochi to cool down before you slice it.
More Butter Mochi Recipes
Looking for more butter mochi recipes? Check these out!
Pumpkin Butter Mochi
Ingredients
- 1 16 oz. box mochiko
- 1 1/2 cups sugar see note
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 eggs
- 2 15 oz. cans pumpkin puree
- 1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 12 oz. can evaporated milk see note
- 1 cup butter (two sticks) melted
- 2 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9×13" baking pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk mochiko, sugar, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, beat eggs with pumpkin puree, condensed milk, evaporated milk, melted butter, and vanilla.
- Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix well until fully incorporated.
- Bake for one hour or until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean. Let rest for at least one hour before slicing. Leftovers can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Video
Notes
- This is an updated recipe as of 2023 with sugar decreased by 1/2 cup and an addition of a can of evaporated milk. This makes the butter mochi more mochi-like, dense, and very moist. If you’d like the cakier version from the original recipe, simply omit the evaporated milk. Different brands of pumpkin puree may also be drier or wetter, so you may want to adjust the liquid in the recipe accordingly. But this recipe is so forgiving, it can handle a wide range of differences in amount of liquid added.
21 comments
This recipe was easy to make, my boys even helped out with it, and it was delicious! It was for Thanksgiving so I made it the day before since I knew that the kitchen would be busy. It made my Thanksgiving stress-free and everyone loved the pumpkin mochi!
Thanks so much for your review, Shannon! I’m so glad your family liked it!
I’m dairy free – do you think it could be made with full fat coconut milk instead of condensed milk? Would you suggest any other substitution or adjustments to make it dairy free?
Hi Summer, I think that would be a fine substitution. Maybe add some sugar to make up for the lost sweetness, and potentially bake a little longer, as the coconut milk might be more liquidy than condensed milk.
[…] Pumpkin Butter Mochi […]
Delicious!! I have been wanting pumpkin pie but shouldn’t have gluten so I haven’t been adventurous enough to make gf crust. Now I don’t need to! This is absolutely amazing and totally satisfies my craving!! I will definitely be making this again!!
[…] Pumpkin Butter Mochi […]
This was SO GOOD! Just made it tonight for my family and grandma, and they all LOVED it. Will definitely be making this many more times in the future!
This is insanely delicious! Really puts the butter in butter mochi, heh. I upped the salt significantly, but made it as written otherwise, and it turned out majestically. Thanks for sharing!
I followed the instructions to a tee and cooled it for 2 hours. It came out gooey and mushy, not chewy at all. Tasted just like pumpkin pie filling, the texture was the same as pumpkin pie filling too. I was hoping it would be chewy like mochi.
Hi Lia, this recipe is supposed to taste like pumpkin pie, so I would say you did it correctly. This is a Hawaiian butter mochi recipe; not a Japanese mochi recipe, so you may want to look at other recipes if you want something that’s more similar to mochi in Asia.
First time making butter mochi. I live in Hawaii and this got multi thumbs-ups from my coworkers! Can I do this with condensed and evaporated coconut milks?
Yay! Glad to hear it. You can definitely substitute other coconut milks; I haven’t done those exact ones myself, but the recipe is very forgiving and should turn out fine.
Huge hit at my house for Thanksgiving! My fiance is gluten-free, and he loved it! I used coconut milk instead of condensed milk, and evaporated milk. I’m excited to make it again, and try other kinds of squash puree or sweet potato puree, and make it with just coconut milk, and just all-round experiment!
Hi Kristen! What brand of Pumpkin Puree do you use for this recipe?
I’ve used Trader Joe’s and other grocery store brands. They’ve all worked fine!
Thanks so much for the info!
Also, would it be okay to substitute half and half for the evaporated milk?
Would it be okay to substitute half and half for the evaporated milk?
Yes, it should still work fine! I personally like the flavor with evaporated milk, though.
Thanks, I’ll try it with evaporated milk next time!