Lemony Mochi Bars Recipe by Kat Lieu

lemony mochi bar with cream cheese frosting topped with blueberries and lemon wedges by modernasianbaking.com

Hi friends, I'm not going to lie; I go to sleep every night thinking about food. Ever since I pivoted from a healthcare career to a career in food writing, my brain never stops spinning, thinking up new recipes and content for Subtle Asian Baking.

I had just made an ube mochi cake over the weekend and was I craving lemons, don’t ask me why. I wanted something like a lemon bar, but gluten-free and made with less butter. I decided to make a lemon mochi cake as it would resemble a lemon bar! With this recipe, don’t be shy when adding fresh lemon juice and zest. Squeeze a bit more juice in even when you think you’ve added enough, LOL. Please note (due to my East Asian palate) I don’t like desserts that are super sweet, so this lemony mochi without the cream cheese frosting will not be very sweet. People who love sweet, sweet desserts, add extra sugar please!

This gluten-free dessert can be made vegan as well, so please note the vegan substitutions in the recipe below.

Let me know what you think of this relatively foolproof and refreshing spring/summery dessert!

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Author Kat Lieu

Prep time

10 Min

Cook time

60 Min

Total time

1 H & 10 M

Print

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Lemony Mochi Bars Recipe by Kat Lieu

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IngredientsUSMetric

For the lemon mochi cake

• 2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk (sub with 125 g silken tofu for a vegan cake)
• 1 cup any milk (use plant-based or coconut milk for a vegan cake)
• 1/2 cup condensed milk (use vegan condensed milk for a vegan cake)
• Optionally add a tablespoon or two of granulated sugar if you have more of a sweet tooth than I do (this is a not-too-sweet cake) but if you dust with confectioners' sugar or use the frosting, it will definitely be sweet enough!
• a few drops of yellow food coloring gel
• 1/2 tablespoon miso, any (sub with a large pinch of salt)
• Lemon juice from 1 to 2 lemons (you can add more if you want a more lemony flavor, or less, up to you! To me, the more lemon juice the better!)
• 2 tablespoons of any neutral oil or melted unsalted butter (I used olive oil)
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 228 g glutinous rice flour (I used Mochiko)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

For the optional toppings

• Confectioners' sugar for dusting and slices or wedges of lemon for decorating
• Some blueberries, optional
• Alternatively, you can add a layer of your favorite cream cheese frosting or icing or glaze. For my favorite cream cheese frosting try mixing a bar of softened cream cheese (8 oz) with about 1 cup of confectioners' sugar, 2 tablespoons softened butter, some lemon zest, lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon miso, and topped with lemon zest. Taste test, you may need to add a bit more sugar.

Instructions Fahrenheit Celsius

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F with a rack in the center. Generously grease an 8-inch (20-cm) baking pan (I use a square one for this recipe) or line it completely with parchment paper. This cake tends to stick to the bottom, being that it's made with glutinous rice flour and not a lot of oil, unlike butter mochi which is more generous with butter (but it's still sticky, oh the irony!).
2. The best way to whip up this batter is to literally whip everything in a blender, adding all the wet ingredients to the bottom first. Blend until you get a smooth, homogenous, runny but thick batter. It's ok to over blend this forgiving batter.
3. Pour all of the batter into the pan and bake for at least 60 minutes, until an inserted toothpick or bamboo skewer comes out clean. A little bit of sticky residue is OK. As I want to retain the yellow color of this cake, I covered the pan with aluminum foil early on. You can remove the cake from the oven and allow it to set inside the hot pan.
4. Flip the cooled cake out of the pan and dust with the optional confectioners' sugar, lemon zest, a slice or wedge of lemon, and/or some blueberries, or try having it with the cream cheese frosting. Slice into 9 to 12 even bars and enjoy!

Notes

If you want to, you can bake the blueberries directly in the batter :)

Recommended Products:

Modern Asian Baking at Home Cookbook

All-Clad Pro-Release Nonstick Bakeware Square Baking Pan, 8 X 8 inch, Gray

Joseph Joseph Adjustable Rolling Pin with Removable Rings, 13.6", Multi-Color

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lemony mochi bars by Kat Lieu and modernasianbaking.com

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About the Baker

Kat Lieu is the founder of Subtle Asian Baking and this website modernasianbaking.com, and she is the author of Modern Asian Baking at Home. Currently, Kat is a full-time author, activist, and recipe developer. Follow her on Instagram.