This sticky rice flour ball or Nuomici (糯米糍)is a famous Chinese pastry which is quite popular in Guangdong province and Hong Kong. Sometimes, we call them coconut rice ball or coconut mochi.
In summer days, cold drinks and pastries are always popular since they can help us to cool down. Keep those little coconut cake in refrigerator for around 2 hours and just bit it, the aroma of coconut and the sweetness from the combination of sugar and glutinous rice are so satisfying.
Glutinous rice, also known as sticky rice is one of the most important ingredients in types of Chinese pastry. We love glutinous rice and make lots of famous festival foods with it including the rice dumpling (Tangyuan) for Dragon Boat Festival, New Year Rice cake for Spring Festival and Ciba for Middle Autumn day.
Cook’s Note
- This recipe calls for water milled glutinous rice flour.You can get it from some local Asian stores or amazon Dried Sweet Glutinous Rice Flour – 2x 1 Lb (Traditional Water Milled)
- The batter dough can be quite sticky when still warm. After steaming, stir it with chopstick to help it cool down. You may feel strong resistance during the process. When the dough is slightly cooled to touch by hands, transfer it to a plate with plastic wrapper and knead for 3-4 minutes. This is quite important to make the dough chewy and delay aging process. We use the same technique in snow skin mooncake.
- Plastic gloves are very effective tool during wrapping. Although the dough should be little sticky after chilled, plastic gloves can prevent the transmission of heat from our hands.
You will need
- Half cup of desiccated coconut for decoration
- Mango, red bean paste or any other inner filling you want
- 150g (1 and ½ cup) glutinous rice flour (water milled)
- 40g (around 3 tbsp.) cornstarch or plain rice flour
- 30g (around 2 tbsp.) powdered sugar or to taste
- 1 tbsp. vegetable cooking oil (with less taste )
- 240ml coconut milk
Steps
Mix all the ingredients for the batter in a large bowl until well combined.
Place the large bowl in a steamer. Bring the water to a boiling and continue to steam for 20 minutes. Stir once during the process.
When the batter is well steamed, stir it with chopsticks to speed up the cooling down process. After slightly cooled down, transfer it to a plate with plastic wrapper.
Knead the dough for 4-5 minutes with the help of the plastic wrapper. Otherwise it can be quite sticky. Then place in fridge until chilled.
Take a small ball with the help of your thumb and index finger. Form a circle with two fingers and squeeze the ball out.
You can wrap mango, red bean paste or other filling you want. Sweet ones are recommended. If you want to use red bean paste as filling, check how to make red bean paste at home. The most popular filling in China is mango and kiwi fruit.
Then coat the sticky rice balls with coconut.
And carefully transfer it to a cup holder.
Other sticky rice recipes
- Sticky rice cake with red bean paste
- Sticky rice cake with black sesame filling
- Lo Mai Gai, steamed sticky rice with lotus leaf
- Stuffed sticky rice
- Steamed sticky rice with ribs
- Small sticky rice balls over mango smoothie
- Half cup of desiccated coconut for decoration
- Mango, red bean paste or any other inner filling you want
- 150g (1 and ½ cup) glutinous rice flour (water milled)
- 40g (around 3 tbsp.) cornstarch or plain rice flour
- 30g (around 2 tbsp.) powdered sugar or to taste
- 1 tbsp. vegetable cooking oil (with less taste )
- 240ml coconut milk
- Combine all the ingredients in the batter well in a large bowl. Covered with plastic wrapper.
- Place the large bowl in a steamer. Bring the water to a boiling and continue to steam for 20 minutes. Stir once during the process to guarantee the uniform heat.
- Transfer out and stir with chopsticks to help it cool down. Transfer it to a plate with plastic wrapper. Then knead for 3-4 minutes with the help of a plastic wrappers. Wrap the wrapper dough well and fridge until chilled.
- When the wrapper dough is well chilled, use your thumb and index finger to form a circle around the dough and squeeze a ball out. Wrap with your filling.
- Roll the ball in the bowl with desiccated coconut, place in a cupcake cup. Repeat to make all the cake. Put all of them in refrigerator for 2 hours. Enjoy!
Brush some water on hand can reduce the stickiness of the powder syrup.
You can choose your own inner fillings; I use mango and banana this time.
Hey there great recipe! Any chance you would be so kind as to create a peanut filling recipe? I think this is quite common in a lot of Cantonese bakeries. Xie xie ni! X
Hi,
Thanks for the suggestion. I will post another way of making this little balls with peanut filling soon. I fall in love with them because of the yummy taste.
My mom makes the peanut filling and all it is is sugar, sesame seeds, desiccated coconut, and chopped peanuts. It is delicious!
Hi Eva,
That’s another famous Chinese dessert. And yeah,I like them too.
Hi thanks so much for the recipe it was so tasty but when I put them in a container over night in the fridge the outside skin gets hard the next day did I do something wrong or can you please show me some trick to fix the problem ? Thanks so much 🙂
Hi Jenny,
Thanks for your feedback. For your question, the balls get dried out so the outside skin gets hard. You need to wrap them with plastic wrappers to avoid the losing of water.
How long can you kee it fresh for? If I have a pot luck the next day, can I premade them?
You can pre-make then in the previous day. But remember to wrap them with plastic wrapper to prevent drying out.
Is the coconut powder the same as coconut milk powder? Also, can it be replaced with anything else, like maybe cinnamon or brown sugar? Thank you so much!
Hi Gary,
Coconut powder is coconut milk powder. And yes, it can be replaced by other ingredients. We have another recipe using brown sugar in China. But the decoration is syrup and roasted peanuts not desiccated coconut.
can you tell me what kind of starch to use? could I use arrowroot powder? (I’m not able to eat cornstarch)
You can use any starch like arrowroot starch or wheat starch for sure.
Thank you! For the coconut powder question above, what would be a good substitute? Coconut flour? (Also I am traveling to Sichuan soon! I would love to get tips from you!)
Hi Kerri,
Welcome to Sichuan province and I hope you have a great trip soon. And for your question, if you cannot find coconut powder, you can skip it and use coconut milk instead of milk.
How many does this receipe make? Thank you happy new year
Hi Gabe,
It should yield around 10 to 12 sticky rice balls.
Thank you so much what a great recipe we had so much fun making them at preschool today . The children went back for seconds 🙂
Hi Gabe,
Thanks for trying this recipe and leaving me such a warm feedback. It is really so good to know you and the children loved those small rice balls. Happy cooking ahead and give big hugs to the children.
Hi, i cant get enough of these. I pay 1.69 each. I would pay more i love them so much w/ peanut filling…?So this will be my first time making them. How do i make the peanut filling? Betwee Boba Tea, and these tasty rice balls, i could live on them. Yummy !
Hi, I was just wondering what ciba is, you mentioned it in the begining before the recipe.
Also can I use mung bean paste as a filling for this recipe?
Thanks, love your recipes
Hi Andrew,
Ciba is a local name of a famous snack popular in many places in China. It is made with sticky rice too, similar to sticky rice cake but have different ways of cooking and serving.
Mung bean paste is perfect fine as a filling. And that’s great idea for summer serving.
Where does one find a recipe for the fillings. I was thinking of a fruit flavor one maybe banana or pineapple. But I have no clue where to find it.
I use fresh mango cubes as filling. You can use pineapple or banana too.
Hi,
I saw some places that make it with egg custard, but how can I possible fill it with egg custard since it’s so runny?
thanks
You need to freeze the filling before wrapping. Then serve this ball at room temperature.
Hi, thank you for posting this recipe , I have a question about if don’t have coconut powder anything else I can use to instated that?
thank you
I am fine now , thank you