Milk Rice Cake – 3 ingredients homemade rice cake recipe

With this recipe, you only need 3 simple ingredients (rice, milk, sugar) to make chewy and soft homemade milk rice cake.

You can cut your homemade milk rice cake in in to smaller pieces, and use them in any rice cake recipes, such as tteokbokki, air fried rice cakes, and Japanese grilled rice cakes. 

This is also a gluten-free recipe, since all rice is naturally gluten-free.

3 methods for making rice cake

Rice cakes, known for its sticky, chewy and slightly bouncy texture, are prevalent in Asian cooking. It’s called “nian gao” (年糕) in Chinese, “tteok” (떡) in Korean, and “mochi” (もち, 餅) in Japanese. I understand that you might think mochi is a dessert with ice cream or fruit filling. But “mochi” literally means rice cake in Japanese. The mochi you are familiar with should be called as Daifukumochi.

include cakes made with rice flour, made from ground rice, or made from whole grains of cooked rice compressed together.

There are 3 different methos for making rice cake:

1. Hand-pounded rice cake

Traditionally, Chinese elders will make hand-pounded rice cakes as a lucky food during Spring Festival.

People will put freshly steamed hot rice in a giant bucket, and take turns to pound the rice with a wooden hammer for hours until the rice grains turn into a smooth rice cake dough.

Among the three rice cake making methods, the hand-pounding method is the most time-consuming and labor-intensive one. However, hand-pounded rice cakes have the most chewy and bouncy texture. And people especially enjoy the experiences of gathering, pounding, and sharing the huge rice cake that they made together during festivals.

2. Using rice flour

The easiest method for making rice cake at home is mixing rice flour and water to get a rice cake dough. Then you can cut and roll the dough into finger-like strips, and steam them until fully cooked.

You can also substitute about 1/3 of rice flour with the same amount tapioca starch to make the rice cakes chewier.

I have used a similar method to make tricolor dango before, click picture below to see that recipe.

3. Blend rice with milk

If you can’t find rice flour in your local stores, you can also use the method I am going to introduce this recipe – blending rice grains with milk then steam the mixture until solid.

This method does requires a high-speed blender. The more powerful your blender is, the finer and smoother your rice cakes will be. As long as your blender is capable for crushing ice cubes, you can use it for making rice cakes.

The “smoothie” mode on my blender blended the rice milk mixture on high speed for 2 minutes. The mixture turned out to be very fine, and was able to pass a fine mesh strainer.

Some tips for making milk rice cake

1. Choice of Rice

You can use short grain white rice, short grain white rice, jasmine rice, and sweet rice/glutinous rice to make milk rice cakes.

The rule of thumb is using rice that’s sticky after cooked. Do not use brown rice, basmati rice, or wild rice. Otherwise your milk rice cake will be coarse and hard instead of chewy and smooth.

2. Soak the rice

Rinse the rice grains, then add enough cold water to cover them, soak for at least 2 hours (can do overnight).

After this step, you should be able to easily crushed with fingers. With this step, your blender will be able to blend the rice into a fine mixture.

3. Vegan adaptation

Feel free to substitute the milk with plant based milk, such as soy milk, almond milk, oat milk, or water to make this recipe vegan friendly.

I drizzled some honey on the top of my steamed rice cakes. Maple syrup can be a perfect vegan substitution of honey. My grandma use to simply dip her milk rice cakes in sugar! You can also add some cinnamon powder to the sugar.

4. Cupcake cups

I steamed my milk rice cake in silicone and paper cupcake cups. The paper cups kinda stuck to the steamed rice cakes, but that wasn’t too bad. So I’d suggest using silicone cups if you have them available at home.

If you don’t have any proper cupcake cups by hand, you can also brush a heat-resistant container with a thin layer of vegetable oil, steam the rice milk in this container, then cut the milk rice cakes into smaller pieces before serving.

5. Steamer

You can use any type of steamers to steam the milk rice cake.

If you don’t have a steamer at home, you can fill a pot with 1 inch of water, place a steamer rack (or three golf-ball-size aluminum foil balls) on the bottom, put plate on top of the rack/balls, put the lid on, and bring the water to a boil to steam the rice cakes over medium high heat for 30 minutes.

6. Store and reheat milk rice cake

Store any leftover rice cake in an airtight container, keep in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Milk rice cake will turn hard once they turn cold. You can simply steam the cold rice cakes over medium high heat for 5 minutes to make them soft and chewy again.

You can also pan fry your steamed milk rice cake with a thin layer of oil to make their surfaces turn crispy.

But DO NOT deep fry the rice cakes unless you have been professionally trained to do it. The rice cakes can explode while deep-frying, splashing extremely hot oil across your kitchen and on your face! 

EQUIPMENT you will need:

• Blender
• Steamer (Or a pot with lid and a steamer rack/ three golf-ball-size aluminum foil balls)
• cupcake cups (silicone/paper)

INGREDIENTS List

• 1 cup short grain white rice
• ⅘ cup milk (About ¾cup + 1 tbsp. You can also use soy milk, almond milk, or oat milk instead.)
• 2 tbsp sugar

Step-by-step INSTRUCTIONS 

1. Place uncooked short grain white rice in a fine mesh strainer, rinse under cold running water to wash of the dust. Drain the rice, put it in a bowl and add enough water to cover it, soak for at least 2 hours (can do overnight).

2. Drain the rice, add soaked rice, milk, and sugar to a blender. Top with lid, blend on “smoothie mode” or on high speed for 2 minutes until the mixture is smooth.

3. Pour the mixture to silicone or paper cupcake cups. Fill each cup about 80% full. You should be able to fill about 10 cupcake cups.

4. Place the filled cupcake cups on a steamer, steam over medium high heat for about 30 minutes.

5. 30 minutes later, insert a wooden toothpick into the center of a milk rice cake. If the toothpick comes out with a wet batter, steam the rice cakes for 5 more minutes or until the toothpick comes out to be dry.

6. Remove the cupcake cups from the steamer. Allow the steamed milk rice cake to cool for 5 minutes before removing from the cupcake cups.

7. Place the steamed milk rice cake in a serving plate, drizzle with honey or sweetened condensed milk. Optionally decorate with goji berries, raisins, or dried cranberries

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