Matcha Mochi Cake

Trust me, it's GOOD. And what I love about this recipe is that it's super easy and forgiving, and you can be as creative as you like with different flavours. Matcha or banana are my faves.

Ingredients

Makes 1 8-inch tin (16 squares)

275g sweet rice flour (also known as glutinous rice flour)

250g unrefined/golden caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1.5 tsp matcha powder

A pinch of salt


60g melted coconut oil

1 x 400ml can of coconut milk

5 tbsp aquafaba (the liquid from a tin of chickpeas)


Desiccated coconut for dusting


Method

Preheat the oven to 160C

  1. First grease an 8-inch square tin well and coat with desiccated coconut over the bottom and up the sides. This is important as it will stop the cake from sticking to the tin.

  2. Melt the coconut oil and mix with the aquafaba and coconut milk.

  3. Weigh the flour, sugar, matcha, baking powder and salt into a mixing bowl and mix well.

  4. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well to form a smooth batter without any lumps.

  5. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and scatter over more coconut.

  6. Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden brown, risen and starting to crack and pull away from the sides. The cake will still be quite wobbly when it comes out. You may need to turn the oven down to 150C halfway through if the coconut is getting too brown.

  7. Allow to cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes until set enough to remove.

  8. Carefully remove from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack completely.

  9. Once cool, cut the cake into squares ready to serve.

This keeps for a few days in an airtight container - but if you eat it fresh you can enjoy maximum crustiness vs. gooeyness in the eating!

Variations:

Omit the matcha and flavour as follows: 1 ripe mashed banana, or 1 tbsp tahini, mixed into the wet ingredients (remove the equivalent weight of coconut milk). Melted chocolate or cocoa powder (remove equivalent weight from wet or dry ingredients respectively). Any other spice, fruit, flavouring you can think of, with those same principles of replacing some of the ingredients with whatever you are using.