You may have heard of rice flour. It’s used to make, for example, dumpling wrappers in Asian cooking, which are steamed rice sheets. But, you wouldn’t want to confuse regular rice flour with sticky rice flour! Sticky rice flour is used to make dumplings, but it’s also responsible for those chewy, sweet, and addictive desserts like Japanese mochi or sweet rice cakes. It is also used as a thickener and binder.
Sticky rice flour is also called glutinous rice flour or Mochiko rice. Sticky rice or sweet rice is used for the famous Thai dessert sticky rice and mango, the mainstay in American Thai food restaurants.
The best sticky rice flours come from Thailand. The Erawan or “Elephant” Brand Sticky Rice Flour is the most popular there but all Thai brands are generally of good quality.
A popular and highly recommended American product is the Koda Farms Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour. It seems to be the most frequently mentioned by food bloggers, perhaps due to its availability.
When shopping for Asian brands, like the Erawan Glutinous Rice flour, it’s easy to tell the difference between sweet rice flour and regular rice flour by the colors used on the labels. Most of the flours from Asia come in plastic bags and the sweet rice flours have green lettering while the regular rice flours have red lettering.
- Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour
- Certified Organic, Certified Kosher (KSA)
- Naturally Gluten-free, and processed in a facility dedicated exclusively to rice processing
- No Additives: simply cold-rolled and milled from pure California rice
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Difference Between Koda Farms, Thai and Japanese Sticky Rice Flours
There is a difference between the Thai sweet rice flour and the domestic Koda Farms brand. The rice flour from Thailand is made from rice that is soaked first, then milled into a fine powder. The Koda Farms is milled straight from the dry grain. You’ll find the Thai rice flour to be finer and lighter. Depending on the recipe, one may be preffered and sometimes, a mix of the two may even work better.
If you are considering the Koda Farms, in addition to the Mochiko sweet rice flour, you’ll also find Koda Farms “Blue Star” Sweet Rice Flour. The Mochiko is milled from Japanese sweet rice flour, so it is best for traditional Japanese mochi and creates a chewy texture. The Blue Star variety is less sticky and is and can be used to make most sweet rice flour based desserts and for thickening. When using it for cakes, it will produce a lighter, less chewy product.
- One of essential ingredients in Asian Cooking: sweet Glutininous flour
- Ground in traditional water mill, which yields extra fine flour
- Delicious and nutrition. Great for mochi, rice cake, baking and many more
- From Thailand, where the best glytinous rice grows
- Net Wt. 2x1lb
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Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
The Koda Farms Mochiko flour is named after a type of flour used in Japan, called Mochiko , mochikome, or sweet rice. It’s used in many dishes, including mochi. In Japan, they also use a rice flour called Shiratamako, which, unlike Mochiko rice four, is made from rice that is soaked first, like the Thai flours.
Comparing mochis made from either, the primary difference is that the soaked rice, or shiratamako, results in a softer and stretchier dough that will tend to remain softer and more pliable. Mochi made from mochiko is more chewy. If the dough is not shaped when it’s still hot, it’s not going to be pliable enough to shape.
Sticky Rice Flour is Gluten Free, But Don’t Be Confused
Some food bloggers will tell you that sticky rice flour will replace the gluten in flour. Or, at least, they will imply this. It is not true. While sticky rice flour results in a chewy texture, that doesn’t mean it is interchangeable with wheat flour in any recipe. You can’t just make a French Baguette using glutinous rice flour and you can’t just substitute it in your regular cake recipe. It works well in dishes that need a chewy soft texture and, again, it’s a great thickener, but it will not develop the kind of dough that wheat flour will. Gluten is a protein. The chewiness and stickiness of glutinous rice comes from the high starch content. As I explain here, the word glutinous has nothing to do with gluten.
You can find plenty of Mochi recipes on the web as it’s the most well-known dessert made with sweet rice flour. On this page, I want to highlight some lesser-known treats that are sure to become go-to favorites, starting with the absolutely addictive Hawaiian mochi dessert, Butter Coconut Mochi.
Butter Coconut Mochi
Hawaiian Butter Coconut Mochi is a favorite in Hawaii but once you make it for yourself, it will probably become a favorite in your family! It’s just, well, to die for. Butter mochi is like a cross between mochi and a cake, with a little coconut flavor. Can you imagine, coconut milk and butter together in one dessert?
Yep, it’s a high-calorie, high-fat, decadent treat and while you wouldn’t want to eat it all the time, it makes a great snack for when you need energy. Plus, it keeps well. You can even take it along on long hikes. The soft and slightly chewy texture and crispy top has to be experienced to be appreciated. Together with the buttery taste, it just can’t be beat.
The good news is it’s so simple to make it’s just right for when you want an easy dessert that everyone loves. Along with the sweet rice flour, a basic recipe includes coconut milk, butter, and sugar. Many recipes use eggs and baking powder, as well. Vanilla extract or coconut extract can also be added. I would not recommend both. You don’t need a topping, but some recipes call for grated dried coconut. I prefer to leave out the dried coconut as it ruins the wonderful texture.
People eat butter coconut mochi with ice cream, or chocolate sauce but it is typically eaten alone. It doesn’t need any help. Sometimes, passion fruit is added to the batter or a passion fruit glaze is used as a topping. It’s great just sliced into squares and eaten for dessert or as a snack. And, since the pieces can be held in the hand, you can just slice up the cake and serve it at parties.
If you can make pancakes, you can make Butter Mochi. All you have to do is mix together the dry ingredients like sweet rice flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Whisk the wet ingredients together (coconut milk, butter, eggs, milk, vanilla extract). Then mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients until you have a smooth batter. The ingredients may vary depending on the recipe, but the basic method is the same.
Once the batter is smooth, pour it into a buttered baking pan and bake according to recipe directions, generally 50 to 60 minutes, unti golden brown on top. Let the cake cool completely before slicing. Easy peasey.
I recommend the recipe from Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking.
Palitaw Filipino Rice Cake
Palitaw is a simple Filipino rice cake made from sticky rice flour, water, coconut and sesame seeds. It has a soft chewy texture and is great as a dessert or snack. It is traditionally eaten during New Year’s in the Philippines where it is believed that eating sweet foods will strengthen family bonds during the year to come.
These simple sticky rice balls can also be thought of as a great ‘tea-time’ snack. Filipinos enjoy it with tea, and coffee, Some also love to eat it with hot chocolate.
Similar to Japanese Kinako mochi, palitaw is sometimes eaten with kinako powder with the addition of maple syrup. Kinako powder is a flour made from roasted soybeans. It also works with fruit and whipped cream, and, just like everything else, Nutella.
This snack was traditionally made with pounded sticky rice but today it’s more often made with sticky rice flour simply because it’s much easier to make that way. A dough is formed with sticky rice and water, formed into balls, flattened into discs, and then boiled until the pieces float. This is where the name comes from. Palitaw was derived from the Filipino word, litaw, meaning ‘to float or to surface.’
When the balls are done boiling, they are coated with a mixture of grated coconut, roasted sesame seeds and sugar. If you want to be authentic, serve them on a bamboo platter with a layer of banana leaf.
Palitaw could easily be confused with another Filipino dessert called pichi pichi, but the latter used cassava instead of sticky rice.
Enjoy this recipe for Palitaw from PanlasangPinoy.
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Mochi Brownies
Why not combine brownies with mochi? I mean do you like brownies? Do you also like mochi? Does a hybrid fusion of both sound good? If you like a dense and chewy brownie, as I do, and struggle to find a brownie recipe that gives you the texture you crave, then you want a recipe with glutinous rice flour.
Continuing with the trend, Mochi Brownies are another easy, go-to dessert (we’ll save the complicated one for last). You just combine typical brownie ingredients but instead of regular all-purpose flour, you use glutinous rice flour. Koda Farms has its own recipe for these but the recipe I’ve linked below is an adaptation of their recipe and another. The result is everything you want in a brownie: moist, fudgy, chewy, decadent, and, if you’re into it, gluten-free.
I’m imagining warm mochi brownies with vanilla ice cream as I write this…a mochi brownie sundae! Try it with these Easy Mochi Brownies from Keeping It Relle.
Chocolate Butter Mochi Cake
I think of Chocolate Mochi cake as Korean because the first recipes I came across were Korean. Some, like Kat Lieu in her Moder Asian Cooking book, add gochujang into the batter for a spicy kick. Her recipe calls for sticky rice flour, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, regular milk, cornstarch, cocoa powder, semi-sweet chocolate, miso, and gochujang. Both the miso and gochujang could be omitted, of course.
I’m not sure if there is any kind of tradition around it, but what we are talking about is a gluten-free soft, super-moist, and slightly chewy chocolate cake. Even better, combine butter mochi with chocolate! Kat Lieu has a recipe for Gojuchang Chocolate Brown Butter Mochi.
This isn’t simple, it’s time-consuming because you have to brown the butter. But, wowza! If you get addicted to Hawaiian Butter mochi, then don’t make this, because you’ll never come up for air. It’s like the best brownie you’ve ever eaten. As the author puts it, “Imagine a brownie and a marshmallow mochi had a baby…”