Korean baked rice cake bars

Lil’ bun and I have made the Chinese version of steamed rice cake “nian gao” a few times before for lunar new years and we have always loved how easy they are to make. But sometimes, making the same thing over and over gets a little boring.

So today, we decided to be adventurous and make rice cake bars. We made a batch of them in a 9″ x 11″ pan but they disappeared so fast that we made another couple batches except this time we put them in pie pans and decorated the tops with sliced almonds to make them look pretty. (:

Ingredients (one 9″ x 11″ pan OR one 8″ pie pan)

• 3 cup glutinous rice flour (like Mochiko)
• 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups milk of choice (you’ll need to add 1 1/4 cup more milk if you’re using Mochiko)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups add-ins (chopped cashews, diced dry apricots, raisins, sliced almonds, dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chopped walnuts, etc.)

Directions

1. Prepare your filling ingredients. Then, combine glutinous rice flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

2. Stir in the milk and vanilla. Fold in your filling ingredients.

3. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan. Bake at 375F for 30 – 35 minutes until golden brown and crispy on top.

We absolutely adored these baked rice cake bars and even though we only took it out of the oven an hour ago….there’s only about 1/4 of it left.

I know that might sound a little crazy but it was just so good! Lil’ bun’s favorite part was biting into the crunchy crust against the chewy interior! I mean what’s not to love? There were seeds and chopped nuts in there to give it a bit of a crunch, some dried fruit for tang and of course, the best part…the chewiness of the glutinous rice cake.

Love rice cake recipes? Try my red bean rice cakes!