Black Sesame Mochi Cake, Easy One Bowl 5-Minute Recipe

Black Sesame Mochi Cake is the delicious hybrid of bouncy, springy mochi and the rich, sweet taste of eggs and butter of regular cake, infused with nutty, umami flavor of black sesame. It's sweet, slightly chewy, naturally deep in color, and comes together in one bowl in, no kidding, 5 minutes. So much easier than rolling and hand-shaping traditional mochi. Shall we?

Explore More

• Black Sesame Mochi Cake Recipe
• What is Black Sesame Mochi Cake?
• Ingredients You Need for Black Sesame Mochi Cake
• What is Black Sesame Paste
• What is Mochiko, or Sweet Rice Flour?
• How to Make Black Sesame Mochi Cake
• How to Cut Butter Mochi with the Cleanest Edges
• Tools and Equipment for Black Sesame Mochi Cake
• Food for Afterthoughts

What is Black Sesame Mochi Cake?

Black Sesame Mochi Cake is a dessert made with a base of mochiko, aka glutinous rice flour, rather than traditional wheat flour, and infused with the flavor of toasted black sesame seeds. The glutinous rice flour gives Mochi Cake that signature soft, sometimes sticky, slightly chewy texture that is associated with Japanese mochi, Chinese nian gao, and Korean sweet chapssal tteok.

Rather than mixing rice flour with water, shaping dough by hand, and steaming, Mochi Cake incorporates butter/oil, milk, and eggs into the batter, then bakes the cake in a pan in the oven like traditional "western" style cakes.

Best Butter Mochi and Mochi Cake Recipes:

• Matcha Butter Mochi, for the matcha girlies
• Pumpkin Butter Mochi, if your Pumpkin Spice Latte and mochi had cute little bouncy mochi bars
• Red Bean Butter Mochi, a traditional flavor with mochi, made modern in Red Bean Butter Mochi, and one of my Mom's favorite dessert of all time
• Strawberry Mochi Cake, like a pink starburst!

Ingredients You Need for Black Sesame Mochi Cake

Fresh/refrigerator ingredients:

1. Butter, ¼ cup
2. Eggs, 2 large
3. Milk, 1½ cups any %

Dry/pantry ingredients:

1. Black sesame paste, ¼ cup, unsweetened made with 100% black sesame seeds only
2. Mochiko, also known as sweet rice flour or glutinous rice flour, 8 ounces by weight or about 1 cup + 1½ tablespoons
3. Sugar, ¾ cup
4. Salt, ½ teaspoon
5. Baking powder, 2 teaspoons
6. Vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon
7. Black sesame seeds, 2 tablespoons, toasted for sprinkling on top

Optional: toasted black and white sesame seeds, chopped peanuts, or shredded coconut are optional ingredients you can sprinkle onto the batter right before baking. The sesame seeds, peanuts, or coconut will make a visual statement and add a little extra toastiness!

What is Black Sesame Paste

At its simplest, black sesame paste is a thick spread made from ground black sesame seeds, which have a more robust nutty, toasty flavor than regular white sesame seeds. Many cultural cuisines use black sesame paste, whether for sweet or savory dishes.

There are two main types of black sesame paste. Pure black sesame paste is made from 100% black sesame seeds, with no added oils or sweeteners. Sweetened black sesame paste has added sugar or honey, and sometimes oils to thin out the texture, making it more spreadable. These sweetened versions are sometimes called black sesame spread or black sesame butter to indicate that they're meant to be used straight out of the container as such.

For this recipe, I use unsweetened 100% pure black sesame paste that I buy at H Mart (Korean market) or 99 Ranch Market (Chinese).

Many cultural cuisines use black sesame paste for both sweet and savory dishes. In Japan, black sesame paste is known as "kuro neri goma" and appears in desserts like ice cream, mochi, and chiffon cakes. In China, it’s used in tangyuan, sesame soup, and fillings for buns and pastries. Mediterranean cuisine has a sesame paste called tahini, and black sesame paste is considered a black tahini.

Where to Find Black Sesame Paste

You can find Japanese and Chinese style black sesame paste in Asian markets, black tahini like this brand in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern markets, and of course online. Some larger grocery stores may also carry black sesame paste.

What is Mochiko, or Sweet Rice Flour?

Mochiko is a type of rice flour made from sweet rice, sometimes called sticky rice or glutinous rice. Though mochiko is generally associated with Japanese cuisine, it is a popular ingredient across many Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines, sometimes used in savory dishes, and mostly used in sweet desserts and confections. When baked or cooked, mochiko imparts a distinctive texture that ranges from bouncy and squishy to sticky and chewy.

If you've ever had mochi, mochi ice cream, or any of the small colorful rice cakes like Korean tteok/dduk, Filipino bibingka, and Chinese nian gao, you're familiar with the texture!

Though the name has the word "glutinous" in it, glutinous rice flour does not have "gluten," spelled with an "e" in it, so it is in fact, gluten-free. The word glutinous refers to the high starch content of the sweet rice, which is what makes it sweet and sticky.

This is the brand of mochiko I use. A multi-generation Japanese-American rice farming family grows and mills it on their Central Valley California farm!

Other Types of Sweet/Glutinous Rice Flour

There are several types of sweet rice flours that are similar to mochiko in that they are derived from sweet rice, but different in the way they are processed and therefore slightly different in the final texture and how it is used:

• Shiratamako is another Japanese style of glutinous rice flour, processed by soaking the rice first then milling into a much finer final product that is better suited for silky mochi confections. Shiratamako is not as widely available as mochiko, and is generally more expensive.
• Thai glutinous rice flour, Erawan brand pictured above, is also made by the "wet milling" method and is used for smooth silky dumplings. If you can't find a glutinous rice flour labeled mochiko, this is a good substitute.
• Sweet Rice Flour is basically any other "Western" brand that makes its own finely ground sweet rice flour, e.g. Bob's Red Mill.

Additional Ingredients Notes and Resources

1. Mochiko. I almost always use this brand of mochiko. You can buy it at most Japanese and Asian grocery stores, and online.
2. Sugar. Plain granulated sugar works the best here. If the sugar is organic or unrefined, it may have a slightly beige tint to it which is fine.
3. Salt. Either this kosher salt or this ancient sea salt for every day use in the kitchen.
4. Butter. I use salted butter for everything because I love salt. You can use unsalted butter, but why.
5. Milk. You can use any fat percentage of regular dairy milk, though I have had the best results with 2%. Even nonfat/skim milk is fine.

How to Make Black Sesame Mochi Cake

Plan ahead: Make sure milk and eggs are at room temperature by taking them out of the refrigerator about 1 hour before you start.

Make Black Sesame Mochi Cake Batter

Pro Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

• Butter Spread All the Way Into Corners. Make sure to grease all the way into the corners of the pan to make sure the Mochi Cake releases.
• Dust Pan with Extra Mochiko. Dust the buttered/greased pan with some of the mochiko or regular rice flour to make a very crackly crust around the edges of the final baked Mochi Cake.
• Whisk and Stir by Hand rather than an electric mixer, which will aerate the batter too much and give it a fluffier, more cake-like texture rather than the bouncy, chewy, mochi-like texture we want in Mochi Cake.
• Tap the Batter in the Pan against the counter to pop out any air bubbles.
• Use a PLASTIC Knife, like the disposable kind, to cut the mochi for the smoothest, edges and no sticking. I tried a serrated/bread knife, my ultra sharp Bob Kramer knife heated, run under water, slicked with oil and butter, and none of those even came close to a clean cut. I have no idea what the science is behind how or why the cheap plastic knife works the best, but it does.

Mochi is notoriously sticky, making it somewhat difficult to cut into perfect squares. I have tried EVERYTHING from a serrated/bread knife to my ultra sharp Bob Kramer knife, and every technique, from heated knife, run under water, slicked with oil and butter, and none of those even came close to a clean cut. I have no idea what the science is behind how or why the cheap plastic knife works the best, but it just does.

And yes, I have ordered a random doordash with the sole intention of getting one plastic knife to use for Butter Mochi.

Ingredients Substitutions and Varying Ratios

The Black Sesame Mochi Cake itself, like all mochi cake recipes, is fairly forgiving in terms of flavor additions and measurement precision. However, there aren't many actual substitutes for the ingredients themselves, e.g. sweet/glutinous rice flour, butter, sugar, and eggs.

Full Substitutions

• Can you use regular rice flour for Black Sesame Mochi Cake? No. Regular rice flour is not "sticky" and does not produce the mochi "bounce." You can use different styles of sweet rice flour or glutinous rice flour, but you cannot use regular rice flour, or any other kind of flour, for that matter.
• Can you use a different type of flour for Black Sesame Mochi Cake? No, you cannot use any other kind of flour, e.g. wheat flour, cassava or other starch, or ground nut flours.
• Can you use whole black sesame seeds? Yes! But you will have to grind them yourself in a high power blender first. You may not be able to grind the black sesame seeds down into a smooth paste, but getting it down to the finest powder possible will work. Your final Black Sesame Mochi Cake may not be as deep in color.
• Can You Substitute Out the Butter? Yes, you can absolutely substitute coconut oil, or a plant-based butter.
• Can you Replace the Eggs? I have not yet personally made this Strawberry Mochi Cake with an egg substitute, either store-bought or something like ground flaxseeds. If you do, please let me know how it turns out! I would recommend against ground flaxseed though, as they will take away from the smooth texture of the mochi.
• Milk. If you would prefer not to use regular dairy milk, you can substitute with an equal amount of coconut milk, any other plant-based milk.

Varying the Amount of an Ingredient

• Sugar. If you prefer a dessert that is less sweet, decrease the amount of sugar by up to half without affecting the texture of the final Mochi Cake. However, do not use a low- or no-calorie sugar substitute.
• Butter. My mom, a stubborn product of the lowfat diet era, requires that I reduce the butter by half in anything I ever make or bake. I have made this Strawberry Butter Mochi Cake with half the amount of butter (¼ cup melted butter) and it wasn't terrible. It had a texture that is much closer to regular Japanese-style mochi or Korean tteok which do not contain butter.

Tools and Equipment for Black Sesame Mochi Cake

There isn't any special tool or piece of equipment required for Black Sesame Mochi Cake. In fact, I highly encourage you to skip hauling out heavy stand mixers or hand mixers for this. However, that doesn't mean there are a couple of things that might make this recipe easier than it already is to get from pantry to plate.

• 8x8-inch pan. Because the final baked mochi is very sticky, you will have to grease or spray the pan no matter what. So it doesn't matter if the pan is non-stick or not. I love this pan with the 90° angle, perfectly squared off corners. This is a more affordable one available on amazon.
• Ceramic 8x8-inch pan. Because Mochi Cake is considered something of a "homestyle" recipe, I love the look of it in baked and served directly out of a cute ceramic dish. And how cute is this sage green one that matches the matcha green???
• Parchment paper. if you're really worried about the mochi sticking to the pan, use parchment paper. Grease the pan directly first, layer with parchment, then grease the parchment. If you don't grease the parchment, the mochi will stick to it!
• Glass mixing bowls. You will need a fairly large mixing bowl to make this.
• Sifter. I use an inexpensive metal wire sieve to sift dry ingredients together. P.S. metal sieves are great for straining bone broth!
• Whisk. So much easier to grab a whisk out of the utensil drawer than haul a mixer out of the cabinets!
• Spatula. To scrape every last drop of that precious mochi cake batter out of the bowl and into the pan.

Different Size Pans for Baking Mochi Cakes

• Can You Bake Mochi Cake in a Muffin/Cupcake Tin? Yes! See photo above left! And I highly encourage it because you get MAXIMUM crispy caramelized edges! Bake this Mochi Cake recipe as is in a 12-cup muffin tin, yielding 12 mochi muffins. Fill the muffin cups ⅘ full with just a ½-inch of space at the top. Mochi muffins do not rise like regular muffins and will not overflow. No muffin tops!
• Can You Bake Mochi Cake in a 9x13 Pan? Yes! Double the ingredients and bake in a 9x13 pan.
• Can You Bake Mochi Cake in a Round Pan? Yes! You can bake this recipe as is in 8-inch round pans or 9-inch round cake pans. The final product will be a little taller, so you may need to add 5-10 minutes to the baking time.
• Can You Bake the Mochi Cake in a Loaf Pan? No, not recommended! A loaf pan is too deep for this batter that is very liquidy.

Leftovers and Storage

You can absolutely keep leftover Black Sesame Mochi Cake for several days in the refrigerator and up to a month in the freezer. You just need to take care to do a couple of things for optimal storage:

• Pre-slice the Black Sesame Mochi Cake into individual portions
• Wrap each individual piece of Black Sesame Mochi Cake in parchment paper (best option) or plastic cling wrap (acceptable option) to keep them from sticking together.
• Air-tight containers are the best for keeping the mochi from drying out and getting a little too chewy (unless you like that)

Here are detailed tips for how long to store leftovers:

Refrigerator. Keep leftover Black Sesame Mochi Cake in an airtight container in the refrigerator for five days. Take individual servings out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature or heat gently in the microwave for 30 seconds or in a toaster oven on medium.

Freezer. Store Black Sesame Butter Mochi Cake for the longer term, about 1 month, in the freezer. It is best to freeze what you know you wont eat right away. Wrap each portion in parchment paper to keep from sticking, and store in an airtight, freezer-safe container. Thaw in refrigerator overnight, or pop into a toaster oven or air-fryer for a few minutes.

Countertop. NOT RECOMMENDED for leftovers.

Food for Afterthoughts

It was to be a bridal shower of historic proportions. So much to plan, so many details, so the tangerine troupe divided and conquered, and I lucked out with...dessert duty. Whatever it would take, provide the dessert with the budget in mind. Oh, please. This is sooo my thing. This was going to be...cake. Literally. Small ones, since those are in fashion, and well, this bridal shower was going to a very fashionable event.

For several weeks, I prepared. I practiced technique. I tested flavors. Espresso mocha cake with vanilla cream frosting were good. That is, if they were being honest with me, those lying babycake-nappers! I even succumbed to the hormonal insistence of mommy-to-be and promised red velvet. I had done disco-conut with fuzzy white afros, and, well, I trusted myself enough that a first pass at lemon-ginger with ginger cream cheese frosting would probably turn out okay. I was ready. Cake flour. Perfectly pastel paper liners. Even...garnish.

But in the last minutes before Friday turned into Frinight, whilst last-minute shopping through pink and white and sheer black lacy naughtiness , I had a momentary lapse of culinary. I don’t know what came over me – maybe some deep, booming bass? It was a fleeting thought of “wait, should I...” that turned into a semi-psychotic desperation of "yes, I should, but..."

411...Beverly Hills...a pastry 911...and can I still order? They said yes. Yes! I thanked them for saving my nightlife. Insanity had turned me into a nasty hypocrite and in the end, I let the Funk win out over the Fashion. I am horrible. I am terrible. But I did dance my a** off :)

Sprinkles cupcakes are, without question, pretty. A dozen in a box are all uniform in size and shape – regular cupcake size (not like overgrown dewberry muffins - and if you get that reference, you are my hero) and perfectly smoothed-over dome-shaped frosting. On a tiered cake plate, pastel pink and white frosted cupcakes with tiny sugar flower decorations looked so incredibly girlie cute it made me want to oh, I don’t know, punch Hello Kitty. But only lightly. Like a girl.

The thing with Sprinkles is that they remind me a lot of some girls I know. Very pretty, beautifully done up. But unfortunately, they cost a lot and once you get past the 2 inches of sugary makeup and expensive accessories, they are dry, bland, and dense. Funny, just like Sprinkles, they're from Beverly Hills, too! Alright, I’m just kidding. I only make fun because I'm jealous ;)

Three of them I had tried last time: black and white, red velvet (just for Jen), and strawberry. Strawberry was the only one that I thought was decent, with real strawberry puree in the cake and in the pink tinted frosting. But on all of them, the frosting was so sickeningly sweet I could feel it in my teeth, literally. The sugar had not been blended into the butter or the cream cheese, so it was sandy, and I felt like I was getting my teeth cleaned with that gritty fruit-flavored polish that the hygienist scoops out of the tiny plastic pot attached to her finger. I hate that. *shudders*

The flavor I ordered selfishly just so I could try it was coconut. I had made coconut before for Figi, had planned to bake them again for the BS (that's BS for bridal shower, of course LOL!), and now wanted to see why people get their tastebuds tangled over Sprinkles’ coconut. Hm, I still don’t know why. Over-sweetness aside, the frosting didn’t taste anything like coconut. The cake was way too dense and heavy, had only the faintest flavor of coconut, and sadly, it really tasted like undercooked pure flour bread dough. Again, it looked pretty all done up with white blonde coconut teased into a flurry, but, well, I did say it was blonde.

The cupcakes had gotten many a cooing oooh when they were served, but by the end of the BS, I saw many a half-eaten cupcake on the tables, and a few with just a single bite taken out. If it weren’t for The Crystal Method, there would have been wrappers only strewn all over the tablecloths. I just know it.