Sweet Rice Mini Bundt Cake is an updated tteokppang version that uses freshly milled sweet rice flour instead of regular store bought dry flour. Using freshly milled sweet rice flour gives this cake a corn bread like texture with a crunchy crust on the outside and a fabulously springy and chewy on the inside. The recipe has been modified to have a more cake like texture than my original recipe.
** This is a sponsored post for NutriMill Harvest but all opinions are my own.**
Naturally gluten-free and delicious, this sweet rice mini bundt cake recipe is a spin-off of my original Tteokppang recipe which is an oven baked Korean fusion dessert. Now, tteok means ‘rice cake’ in Korean and Ppang means ‘bread’, and this is indeed a fusion of the two – it uses the common cake ingredients of egg, butter, milk and vanilla extract but it uses sweet rice flour instead of regular wheat flour.
Although there’s no way of finding the origin of this dessert, I am quite sure it was something that was created by Korean Americans living in the US because I never had or heard of this while growing up in Korea. Only after coming to US, did I hear about this yummy creation.
I probably had this many times made by many different Korean ladies each with their own version. Some have nuts and dried fruit in them, some make it in the microwave, some make it in muffin cups but mostly they make it in a cake pan and slice it to serve. The best version I have had was the one baked by Mrs. S.H. Kim at church.
We both served in the welcoming committee for new church members for a few years and her tteokppang was the favorite always. I finally got her recipe some time ago and was soooo excited to try it. But ….😭😭there was one problem with the recipe. Everything about the recipe was quite accurate except.. milk.. the amount was “적당히 jeokdanghee”.. 😝😝 Which means “appropriately” or basically the “right” amount.
Right. She probably knows from experience how much that is but hmm.. did she do it on purpose to trip me out?? HAHA.. I don’t think so because she is a very nice person. Anyway, so it took me a couple tries and here we are. I’m actually kind of glad that I had to work for it and had the chance to try different things.
What is special about fresh milled sweet brown rice flour?
We all know that highly processed and refined flours are not good for our health. White flours, for example, contain much less nutrients and oils than whole wheat flours because lot of the beneficial parts of the grain gets removed before it is ground into flour. Having germ oils in the flour makes the flour go rancid in just 6-9 months which reduces shelf life and is bad business for companies. Anyway, so we should try to eat whole wheat and whole grains as much as possible.
Now when you can mill your own flour from whole grains like Sweet Brown Rice, you know the flour will have lot more fiber and more vitamins than a store-bought refined sweet white rice flour. Also, freshly milled flour (in my opinion) taste fresher and has more flavor and texture.
What is Nutrimill? Why am I sponsoring this product?
Recently, I attended a conference for food bloggers and had a chance to see this machine in action. First I was attracted by it because it was just pretty to look at. 😝 I loved that they encased it in bamboo. But seeing how it worked and hearing more about it, I was intrigued. So I did some more research and tried the machine myself to first see if it was worth recommending to my readers.
I’m sure you know that this is my very FIRST product that I’m promoting and I told myself long time ago that I would NOT promote anything to my loyal readers unless I totally believed in the product. So, you can imagine how many things I have turned down… Asian noodle brand that said NO MSG but hid it under a different name, Korean sauces that was made with corn syrup and MSG…
And honestly, before I got this NutriMill Harvest product and used it, I was not sure if this was something that I really needed or would be using often. But after having used it for a while, I can now see that this will be such a great addition to the Korean kitchen. Because Koreans love using ground grains and in particular, I’m thinking it can be used for the following:
- Seonshik (선식禪食) – a powder mix of various healthy grains that Koreans like to make a drink out of and eat for breakfast or as a snack. Seonshik was originally a temple food that was said to help monks meditate and was made from grains like brown rice, sweet rice, Job’s tears and black soybeans.
- All sorts of organic grain flour – often times I find that organic grain flours that are used in Korean cooking are not sold at Korean grocery stores. Buckwheat, Sorghum, Sweet Rice, Brown Rice flours, and Soybean flour are all used in Korean cooking and I can rarely find an organic version of these flours at the store. But — they always have organic whole grains?! Which means I can grind them to make organic flours!!!
What makes this Sweet Rice Bundt Cake Different and Yummy?
My previous Tteokppang recipe uses ultra-fine Mochiko flour which makes the inside of the cake much more like mochi tteok with a very dense, chewy but also somewhat gummy texture. This recipe with the freshly milled sweet white and brown rice flour has a more grainy texture which makes the cake more light and spongy and less dense.
Personally, I really LOVE this lighter texture and a little more “cake-like” than the old tteokppang. Of course, if you are looking for a more traditional tteok texture, you can use mochiko flour or grind the flour twice to get a finer flour. And please don’t think this will be anything similar to a regular cake, it is still going to be CHEWY and dense.
By mixing both brown and white sweet rice, you get a more flavorful and healthier cake with more fiber and nutrients that come from sweet brown rice. Also by using a mini bundt and cakelettes pans (instead of 9×5 pan), it can be baked in much less time – 25 to 35 minutes instead of 1 hr.
Here’s a picture of milling sweet rice with NutriMill Harvest. So easy and fun to watch —
Step-by-Step Directions for Sweet Brown Rice Bundt Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Grind sweet rice and brown rice in the Nutrimill grinder at the finest setting. 1 cup sweet rice produces about 1 1/2 cup ground flour. If you don’t want to use a Nutrimill grinder, just buy and use sweet brown rice flour and sweet rice flour.
- Melt butter in the microwave until it becomes fully liquid.
- Spray or brush mini bundt cake pan and/or cakelette pan with oil.
- In a large mixing bowl or cake mixer bowl, add both sweet brown rice and sweet rice flour. In this picture you can see how fine the freshly milled flour is.
- Add salt and baking powder. Mix dry powder with a whisk.
- Add milk, vanilla extract, eggs, butter and sugar to dry mixture in 6.
- If using a cake mixer, mix for 3 min. or more until well blended with no lumps. I used a hand wisk in this picture and it was quite easy to mix so you can do it without a cake mixer if you’d like.
- Fold in red bean paste into the batter.
- When red bean paste is evenly mixed in, pour batter into cake molds.
- For mini bundt cake pans, bake for 35 minutes. For cakelettes, bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and looking like this —
- Let it cool for few minutes until cool enough to handle. Remove from pan and enjoy!
Cook’s Tips
- To make a more dense and smooth tteok like texture, grind the flour twice to make a finer flour
- If you cannot find sweet brown rice flour, just use sweet white rice flour
- Add chopped walnuts, almonds, dried cranberries, dried raisins for more flavor
- Sweet red bean paste is optional so make without it if you don’t have it or like it
- Reduce amount of sugar for a less sweet cake
- Make a big batch and freeze it for later
Well, I hope you try making my new Tteokppang recipe in your muffin, bundt, cakelette or even madeleine pan!
If you want to find out more about Nutrimill and their products, you can go HERE and find out more.
XOXO ❤️
JinJoo
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Sweet Rice Bundt Cake
Ingredients
Dry Mixture
- 1 cup brown sweet rice flour
- 1 cup sweet rice flour
- 1/2 cup sugar (I used organic)
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
Wet Mixture
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 oz unsalted butter (melted)
- 2 each egg
- 1/2 cup sweet red bean paste (anko)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Grind sweet rice and brown rice in the Nutrimill grinder at the finest setting. 1 cup sweet rice produces about 1 1/2 cup ground flour. If you don't want to use a Nutrimill grinder, just buy and use sweet brown rice flour and sweet rice flour (mochiko).
- Melt butter in the microwave until it becomes fully liquid.
- Spray or brush mini bundt cake pan and/or cakelette pan with oil to prevent sticking.
- In a large mixing bowl or cake mixer bowl, add both sweet brown rice and sweet rice flour.
- Add salt and baking powder. Mix dry powder with a whisk.
- Add milk, vanilla extract, eggs, butter and sugar to dry mixture in 6.
- If using a cake mixer, mix for 3 min. or more until well blended with no lumps. I used a hand whisk and it was quite easy to mix so you can do it without a cake mixer if you don't have one.
- Fold in red bean paste into the batter.
- When red bean paste is evenly mixed in, pour batter into cake molds.
- For mini bundt cake pans, bake for 35 minutes. For cakelettes, bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the thickest part of the batter.
Tips & Notes:
- Can also be baked in one regular bundt cake pan. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes.
- Substitute for sweet brown rice flour, is to use just sweet rice flour all the way!
- Add chopped walnuts or almonds for more crunch and nutty flavor
- Add dried fruits like raisins and cranberries
- Dust the top with powdered sugar to make it even more pretty
- Can be stored at room temperature for 3-4 days.
- Freeze leftovers for later. Just thaw and enjoy or heat in the microwave for few seconds.
- Enjoy with some Korean green or chrysanthemum tea. Or Coffee!
Skim says
Hi! I really want to try a bunch of your recipes and I appreciate your gluten free ones so much! I was wondering what I can use instead of eggs? My kids are severely allergic.
Thank you!
JinJoo says
So glad to hear it! So, although I have not tried it with this particular recipe – but the usual substitute for eggs in baking is apple sauce or banana. 1/4 cup of either for 1 egg. Try it and would love to hear back how it turned out. Cheers!
Jennie says
If I am using pre-bought flour do I use 1.5 cups? Thanks!
JinJoo says
If you are going to use store-bought rice flour, I would suggest that you use a different recipe – https://kimchimari.com/sweet-red-bean-rice-cake/ which is specifically using Mochiko flour. And fyi, by 1.5 cups, I meant when you ground 1 cup sweet rice, you will end up with 1.5 cups which is more than you need for the recipe since I noted you will need 1 cup each of brown and sweet rice flour. anyway, hope that helps!
Tiffany D Ramswell says
Help! I don’t know what I did wrong… I made this with sweet rice flour all the way because I couldn’t find brown, and I didn’t mill it myself because I dont have one. But everything else I followed, and my cakes came out with a very odd rubber like texture, not cake like at all. Any idea what I did wrong?
JinJoo says
So I am not sure if you did anything wrong.. I’m sorry, perhaps I was not clear in my post, the texture you are going to get from this recipe is not going to be crumbly and light like a regular cake. This one is going to be more like tteok (or mochi). It is going to be chewy (I guess one could call it rubbery) and dense. People who love tteok(rice cakes) love this texture but I know it can be a little unpleasant for some. It def. is less chewy and dense if you use the freshly milled flour and include the brown but it will still be chewy and dense. Thank you so much for asking and hopefully you can get used to the texture. 😉
Kelly says
What’s a substitute for red bean paste
JinJoo says
Well, I’m afraid there is really no substitute for red bean paste in this case. You can buy one from my amazon store (https://amzn.to/30qyeQE) if you can’t get one. If you don’t want to use it, you can just make it without it. It will be just a little less sweet and missing the red bean flavor but should still be good.
Helen Graboski says
HI, this recipe looks amazing, I am a little confused about quantities. Do you only use 1 egg? Are the ingredients listed for 1 small bundt cake? It looks like only 1 c of flour is used (1/2 white and 1/2 brown) Thank you
JinJoo says
Hi Helen, Thank you so much for asking! Yes, you only use 1 egg with 1 cup of rice + brown flour. But you were right to be a little confused, I think I did make a bit of a mistake in saying this makes 6 mini bundt cakes. This amount makes 3 not 6. FYI, the mini bundt cake is about 3.5 inch size in diameter. I just made a batch to reconfirm and it does come out yummy!! Apologies for the confusion.