CherryCooks: Custard Mochi Cake and an oven mishap

An instagram picture...always enticing - you can see the top crusty part, then a centre of "egg custard" and then a layer of mochi cake mmm

I had some time off yesterday (phew) and I decided to tackle an interesting recipe that I had bookmarked a while back - custard mochi cake.  Mochi is a Japanese rice cake - most people know it in the form of sweet mochi with crushed peanut filling, black sesame filling, red bean, green tea flavoured and even strawberries.  I loved mochi since I was a young girl - my brother and I loved it the most in the form of mochi ice cream, which were packs of two balls of ice cream covered in a thin mochi skin.  I love the chewiness of mochi, it's just so much fun to eat!

I was going to tackle a Madeleine recipe (I wanted to eat them in Paris but sadly didn't have time to get any or find any), but decided to go with something simpler.  Also, I had bought the Mochiko flour from the Asian supermarket a few months back so I figured I better use it.

I've been baking ever since I was allowed to bake on my own, so that would be around 12 years old.  I've made countless of cakes for birthdays, Christmas dinners, Valentine's days...as well as cookies for all occasions.  I've cooked up a dinner for 12 people in the past, as well as dinner for 2 with my boyfriend.  So to say I have no experience in the kitchen is really not true.  I learned most of my recipes and techniques from my mom, my dad as well as my grandpa, who used to own several Chinese restaurants before he retired several years ago.  If I cook Chinese food, it's always always a recipe from my grandpa.

Anyways, I decided to get everything ready for the cake and just when everything was ready and I was about to grease my 9x13" pan to pop into my oven, which I was about to preheat since I was almost finished with the batter...the worst thing possible could happen.

The oven did not turn on.


So I had all this batter.  And not hot oven.  Actually...no oven that worked at all.  ARGH WHAT DO I DO?  The other alternative we had was the toaster oven, which I had used to bake cakes in the past with decent results.  Only problem is that my 9x13" pan did not fit in there - only my 8x8".

Every baker will know that it's problematic - it's not easy to substitute your pans and get the same results.  To be honest, I should have split my batter in two parts (so using two 8x8" pans) however...I was lazy.  And if I did that, the baking would go into dinner time and I hate it when that happens because then people start badgering me about the cake in the oven.

By the way, I found out later that my grandpa had accidentally hit a switch that turned off the oven.  So it wasn't broken after all!  Good to know that it wasn't broken (because that would've cost a lot of money to repair) but oh boy...I wish I knew then I would've gotten a better result.

Here is the cake cut up into pieces - the top looks a bit weird because in the toaster oven, the heating element was closer and ended up burning the top so I scraped off a bit

Once it was ready, it smelled amazing...and when I cut into it (not a good idea when it was straight out of the oven), it was oozing the custard part out a bit.  But oh my gosh it tasted soooooo good straight out of the oven.  The custard reminded me of a fresh egg tart filling (and I love egg tarts).

Don't be like me and be a little too...in a hurry, and cut this up when it's hot because IT IS A DISASTER...lol.  I ended up shoving it in the freezer for a few minutes (no room in the fridge) and then cut it up after it sat in the fridge overnight.  My suggestion is NOT to do that either because it's not good for your appliances - it makes it work even harder.  So attempt to cool it off before putting it into the fridge.

For all those who are adventurous to try this recipe out, here it is:

Custard Mochi Cake (from Wasabi Prime)

1/2 cup butter, softened 

1 3/4 cup sugar (note: this is the original amount - I used less and still found it too sweet!)

4 cups milk (2% or higher) (note: I only had 1% milk on hand, and it still worked fine)

4 whole eggs 

2 tsp vanilla extract 

2 cups mochiko (rice flour) 

2 tsp baking powder 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Grease 13 X 9 pan. In large bowl, cream butter and sugar. 

Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. 

Add remaining ingredients and mix until well blended. 

Pour into pan and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until center is firm. Cool and chill in refrigerator for a few hours and THEN cut into squares.

Readers: Have you tried mochi cake?