Pumpkin Mochi – Baked, Vegan, Gluten-free Fall Dessert Recipe

Chewy, warm, sweet Baked Pumpkin Mochi filled with molten brown sugar filling or melted cheese filling.

With this easy recipe, you can use up all the leftover from your Halloween pumpkin carving.

Enjoy your pumpkin mochis warm with a cup of hot tea! Hope you relax this fall~🍂

What’s pumpkin mochi?

Mochi (もち, 餅) is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice or glutinous rice flour.

The most popular mochi in the US might be mochi ice cream. That’s why many people believe that mochi should be made of sticky rice dumpling with an ice cream filling.

As a matter of fact, traditional mochi should be stored and enjoyed at room temperature.

Red bean paste is the most classic mochi filling. But as long as the wrapper is made of glutinous rice flour, these little rice cakes can be considered as mochi no matter what filling they have.

In this recipe, we are going to use pumpkin puree to substitute any liquid (water or milk) in traditional mochi recipes. In this way, our mochis will have a natural golden yellow pumpkin color, and a warm fall taste of pumpkin and cinnamon.

How to make a mochi looks like a pumpkin?

By using pumpkin puree and brown sugar, we can get a golden yellow mochi dough without adding any other food colorings.

Pumpkins aren’t usually perfect round. They should have a wide and short squat shape. Therefore, to make a mochi looks more like a pumpkin, you can gently press the mochi ball down a bit, in this way you will get a 2.5” diameter x 1” thick dough.

To mimic the ridges on the outside of a pumpkin, we can use the back of a small knife to 3 to 4 crossing lines on the top side of the mochi ball. Make sure you only make some shallow indentations on the wrapper, otherwise the filling might leak during the process of baking.

An Extra Smart Tip: I pressed 3 crossing lines on cheese flavor mochi balls, and 4 crossing lines on brown sugar flavor mochi balls. So that I would be able to tell them apart after they are baked.

After your pumpkin mochis are baked, you can use some short cinnamon sticks, cloves, raisins, or sunflower seeds to mimic the pumpkin stems.

How to Make Pumpkin Puree

I used 100% pumpkin puree in this recipe.

Pumpkins are 90 percent water. Therefore, you don’t need to add any extra water to make pumpkin puree.

Your decorative pumpkins are totally safe and delicious to eat. You can always bake/steam and puree them at the end of the season, or whenever your are tired of seeing them in your home.

To puree a whole pumpkin, you just cut it into halves, scoop out the pumpkin seeds, place the pumpkin cut-side-down onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and bake at 400 °F for 40 to 60 minutes (depending on the size) until the flesh is soft. Then scoop out the pumpkin flesh into a food processor, blend until smooth.

If you have some small-piece leftover pumpkin flesh from jack-o’-lantern carving, you can also bake (350F for 30 minutes) or steam (medium high heat 20 minutes) the flesh until soft, and blend it with a food processor to make pumpkin puree.

Feel free to use canned pumpkin puree if you want to save some time!

Steam, bake, pan fry, or air fry your pumpkin mochi

There are so many different methods to cook this pumpkin mochi.

If you want your pumpkin mochis to be chewier and softer, the easiest method is steaming them over medium high heat for 15 minutes (starting with cold water).

If you want your pumpkin mochis to taste crisper outside, you can add a layer of cooking oil (about 3 tbsps) to a nonstick skillet, and pan fry the mochi over medium heat for 5 minutes on each side. To make pan-fried mochis, you’d better flatten them into the pancake thickness, otherwise the inside part of the mochi might be undercooked.

If you want your pumpkin mochi to be less oily, you can just brush them with a thin layer of cooking oil or melted butter (about 1 tbsp of oil for 10 mochis), and bake or air fry them at 340 °F until the outside layer turns golden and crispy.

Pumpkin Mochi Fillings

I used brown sugar (sweet and flowing) and mozzarella cheese (milky and stretchy) as my pumpkin mochis’ fillings.

You can also use red bean paste filling, white chocolate custard filling (check out my snow skin mooncakes’ filling), nuts filling (mix chopped nuts and brown sugar at a ratio of 1:1), or air filling (which means skipping the filling).

In this recipe, make sure that you DO NOT wrap more than 1 tablespoon of filling in each pumpkin mochi dough. Otherwise the pumpkin mochis will be very likely to crack💥, especially if you choose to pan fry or air fry them.

If you are worried that the mochi wrapper might be too thin to hold the filling, the safest method is to steam your pumpkin mochis instead of baking or panfrying them.

How to store pumpkin mochi

These baked pumpkin mochis can be stored in an air tight container under room temperature for 2 days.

Do not store them in the fridge, otherwise they will turn dry and hard.

Freeze the premade pumpkin mochi dough:

If you want to make them in large batches or send them to your friends, you can wrap each uncooked mochi dough individually with food wrap, and store them in a ziploc bag in the freezer for up to 1 month.

When you are ready to enjoy them, take them out from the freezer, remove the food wrap, and steam them over medium high heat for 15 to 20 minutes minutes until soft and fully cooked. There is no need to defrost before steaming.

Do not bake, pan fry, or air fry frozen pumpkin mochi, since they are very likely to crack and leak.

Equipment you will need to make pumpkin mochi:

INGREDIENTS  

For making pumpkin mochi dough

• 300 g pumpkin puree (I used canned pumpkin puree, which was 100% pumpkin. You can also use homemade pumpkin puree by steaming the pumpkin and smashing it.)
• 60 g brown sugar (Can be substituted with cane sugar.)
• 260 g glutinous rice flour (Can be substituted with regular rice flour, but not with flour or cornstarch.)
• ½ tsp cinnamon powder (Optional)

For the filling

• 5 tbsp brown sugar (Optional. You can also mix 50% brown sugar with 50% chopped nuts.)
• 5 tbsp shredded mozzarella cheese (Optional)

Other

• 1 tbsp oil (To be brushed over the mochi doughs before baking. You can use melted butter or vegetable oil.)
• 1 cinnamon stick (To make faux pumpkin stems. You can also use cloves, sunflower seeds, or pocky sticks.)

INSTRUCTIONS 

1. Add pumpkin puree, brown sugar, and cinnamon powder to a large bowl, stir until fully mixed.

2. Add glutinous rice flour to the mixture, mix and knead all the ingredients together with your hands for about 5 minutes, until it forms a dough. (The dough shouldn’t be sticky or dry. You won’t be able to stretch this dough like stretching a bread dough. As long as this dough feels smooth, it’s ready to go.)

3. Divide the pumpkin dough into equal 10 pieces. Each piece should weigh about 61g. Roll them into balls.

4. Take a dough ball, use your palms to flatten it into a 4” circle. (Make sure the wrapper is no less than ½” thick, otherwise the wrappers may leak when baked.) Add 1 tbsp of brown sugar or mozzarella cheese in the middle of the wrapper. Seal the wrapper, roll the dough into a ball.

5. Gently press the ball down a bit, in this way you will get a 2.5” diameter x 1” thick flat pumpkin shaped dough. Use the back of a small knife to press 3 to 4 crossing lines on the top side of the mochi dough to mimic the pumpkin’s pattern.

6. Preheat the oven to 340 °F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil. Place the pumpkin mochi doughs on the baking sheet. Brush vegetable oil or melted butter all over each mochi dough to prevent cracking (don’t forget the bottom side). Bake at 340 °F for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown.

7. Transfer the baked pumpkin mochis to a serving plate. Cut a cinnamon stick into 1” pieces. Insert a piece of cinnamon stick into the crossing point of the lines as a faux pumpkin stem. Serve hot/warm.

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