Add ube halaya jam to a classic Hawaiian butter mochi to make ube butter mochi! This butter mochi is so easy to make – just mix all ingredients together and bake.
I have a lot of butter mochi recipes on this blog, but this ube butter mochi is one of my most popular among my friends. My friends from Hawai’i even asked me for the recipe, so I feel pretty confident about sharing this one with you.
Actually, I developed this recipe at the request of another friend who recently came back from vacation in Hawai’i and said she had the best ube butter mochi there. So for those of us not fortunate enough to live in Hawai’i, this one’s for you!
What is Butter Mochi?
Butter mochi is essentially a mochi snack cake from Hawai’i. No one really seems to know for sure who invented it. It’s similar to the bibingka from the Philippines, but obviously it uses mochiko from Japan. In any case, you typically bake it in a rectangular dish and cut it into squares to share. Butter mochi is chewy, dense, and so so good.
What is Ube and Where to Buy It
Ube is a purple root vegetable with a mildly sweet flavor, similar to a sweet potato. Ube is from the Philippines and used frequently in desserts there. Recently, however, ube has become a very popular flavor among Asian American desserts. You can now find ube lattes, ube donuts… even Trader Joe’s sells a whole line of ube snacks (although they’re not that good, in my opinion).
For this recipe, I use both ube extract and ube halaya jam. Both of these are pretty well known ube ingredients and can be found at many Asian markets. While I would like to use fresh ube puree, fresh ube can be difficult to acquire in America. Plus, I heard there’s currently an ube shortage in the Philippines?!
If you don’t have an Asian market near you or can’t find ube products, there’s always Amazon, although it will be much more expensive. Alternatively, if you live near a major American city, you might have some luck using Say Weee grocery delivery. I’ve used them to buy ube halaya jam before, and I have no complaints. If you’d like, you can use my referral link for $10 your first order.
How to Make Butter Mochi
Are you ready for this? Okay… to make butter mochi… you dump all the ingredients in a bowl, mix, and bake.
THAT’S IT.
Seriously, no fancy techniques or stand mixers or other equipment needed. Just stir it all in a bowl. Pour into a dish. Bake.
Butter mochi is SO easy. I often let my kids help me make it because it’s hard to screw up. If you’re a beginner baker, even you can do this.
By the way, I wrote my recipe to use exactly one jar of ube halaya jam and one can of coconut milk. You can easily double this recipe and bake it in a 9×13″ dish for one hour. In that case you would need two jars of jam and two cans of milk, but it also uses an entire box of mochiko. So if you hate leftover ingredients, that’s a good option for you.
More Butter Mochi Variations
Butter mochi recipes are in no shortage. I like to say there’s a butter mochi for everyone. If you want to see more, check these out:
- Classic Hawaiian Butter Mochi
- Custard Mochi
- Chocolate Butter Mochi
- Matcha Butter Mochi
- Black Sesame Butter Mochi
The Best Ube Butter Mochi
Ingredients
- 8 oz mochiko about 1 3/4 cups or half a box
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 12 oz jar ube halaya jam
- 1 14 oz can coconut milk
- 4 oz butter melted 1 stick
- 1/2 tsp ube extract
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease an 8×8" baking dish.
- Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, stirring well to ensure no dry lumps of flour remain.
- Pour into your prepared baking dish and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Allow butter mochi to cool before slicing and serving. Leftover butter mochi will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for a few days.
Video
Notes
- You can double this recipe and bake it in a 9×13″ baking dish for one hour.
- I highly recommend using a digital kitchen scale to measure your mochiko. Differences in the amount of mochiko may result in differences in the thickness of your batter, which will affect bake time.
- Different brands of ube halaya may be more or less dry, which may also affect your batter texture and bake time. Expect that more wet batters will take longer to bake.