Enrich plain butter mochi with caramel | The Honolulu Advertiser

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Enrich plain butter mochi with caramel | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper

Posted on: Wednesday, May 16, 2007

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Enrich plain butter mochi with caramel

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Columnist

	Video: Caramel, butter mochi combine for a potluck dish
•	Getting around gluten

For a book I'm working on on Island-style entertaining, I knew I wanted to include a butter mochi recipe, because it's such a Hawai'i-only thing, and something many of us would take to a potluck. But I wanted something a little different — not plain butter, not chocolate, not coconut, which I'd had before.

I thought about my favorite flavors in desserts and recalled how much I love caramel and butterscotch. The result is this recipe, which employs a classic caramel sauce as its centerpiece, combining it with the basic mochiko (rice flour) batter that is the centerpiece of butter mochi.

You can use this sauce on any kind of dessert, as well: ice cream, cake, grilled fruit (as chef Mark Ellman did in his famous Caramel Miranda dessert at the now-gone Avalon restaurant in Lahaina).

In making caramel, some tips:

Be attentive — caramel can go from hardly done to overdone in a short period of time.

Have patience; there's a long period when the sugar-water mixture just bubbles away and nothing happens; then it quickly starts to turn color, which is when you need to pay attention.

Don't stir, just lift the pan from time and time and rotate it briefly to prevent burning.

Use a deep saucepan because there's a point when the sauce boils up furiously and you need some head room to avoid spills.

This is very rich, so I suggest serving just small squares; people can always have seconds.

CARAMEL MOCHI

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup water

1 1/4 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon butter

1 (1-pound) box mochiko (sweet rice flour) — about 3 cups

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup milk

Make caramel sauce: Boil together sugar, water and cream of tartar without stirring, but occasionally swirling the pot, until the mixture achieves a dark tan color; about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and pour in cream, stirring constantly; it will boil furiously and increase in volume. Remove from heat and stir in butter. Set aside to cool.

While caramel sauce is cooking, place rice flour in a medium bowl and whisk in baking powder. Stir in beaten eggs and vanilla. Stir in milk. Stir cooled caramel sauce into rice flour mixture. Pour into a buttered or oil-sprayed 9-by-13-inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center emerges clean and the top is puffed and browned. Cut into small squares and serve.

Makes 24 squares.

Per serving: 190 calories, 5 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 40 mg cholesterol, 50 mg sodium, 32 g carbohydrate, no fiber, 17 g sugar, 3 g protein

Send recipes and queries to Wanda A. Adams, Food Editor, Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Fax: 525-8055. E-mail: wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.

For more information about our 150th anniversary cookbook, call 535-8189 (message phone; your call will be returned). You can order the cookbook online.

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