Japanese Rice Cakes (Homemade Rice Cakes from Scratch)

This recipe teaches us how to easily make Korean and Japanese rice cakes with 3 simple ingredients: white rice, water, and butter. Homemade rice cakes are so chewy and delicious. They are perfect for making tteokbokki (Korean spicy rice cakes), tteokguk (Korean rice cake soup), yaki mochi (grilled Japanese rice cake), and zenzai (red bean soup with mochi).

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% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

Wash 2 cups of uncooked short grain white rice for 3 to 4 times, until the water becomes clear. Soak the rice in 3 cups of cold water overnight. After soaked, the rice grains should be easily crushed with fingers. Drain the water.

Step 2

Pour the drained rice grains into a plate, add 1 cup of cold water to the plate. Steam the rice over medium high heat for 40 minutes or until fully cooked. (You can use a steamer, a large pot with a steamer rack, or use three golf-ball-size aluminum foil balls as a steamer rack. See pictures above.)

Step 3

Transfer the steamed rice to a stand mixer bowl, add 2 tbsp of unsalted butter (no need to soften or melt, because the rice is hot enough). Use a flat beater to mix the rice over medium speed (speed 3 out of 6 speeds on my machine) for 40 minutes. (*See Note 1)

Step 4

40 minutes later, transfer the rice cake dough to a nonstick silicone pastry mat, or cover the countertop with a few layers of food wrap to prevent rice cakes from sticking onto it.

Step 5

Knead the rice cake dough with your hands for about 5 minutes until it looks and feels smooth. The dough will be very sticky if it is still warm. If that happens, you can cover the dough with plastic food wrap, and keep it in the fridge for 1 hour until it's completely cooled down. It will be less stickier once it's cold.

Step 6

To make Japanese rice cakes (kiri mochi), divide the dough into two halves, take one of them, use your palms to press the dough into ½-inch-thick. Cut the dough into several 2½''L X 1½''W X ½''H cuboids. You can use these rice cakes for making yaki mochi (grilled Japanese rice cake) and zenzai (red bean soup with mochi).

Step 7

To make Korean rice cakes (garaetteok), take a small piece of rice cake dough and roll it into a ½-inch-diameter cylinder, then cut the cylinder into 2-inch-long pieces, about the size of your little finger. You can use these rice cakes for making tteokbokki (Korean spicy rice cakes) and tteokguk (Korean rice cake soup).

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