Chef Makoa
Butter Mochi (Hawaiʻi Local Mochiko Coconut Cake)
A chewy, golden Hawaiʻi Local square from mochiko, butter, and coconut milk, baked in one pan until the edges pull crisp and the middle stays tender.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Gau (Hawaiʻi Chinese Nian Gao, Sticky New Year Rice Cake)
Created by
A Hawaiʻi Local Chinese New Year cake, dark with brown sugar and steamed until sticky, glossy, and sliceable. Gau holds the family close, one sweet square at a time.
Desserts
Polynesian, Hawaiian
New Years
Celebration
Make Ahead
25 min
Active Time
1 hr 30 min cook•1 hr 55 min total
Yield1 9-inch cake, about 16 servings
The old people say the sticky cake keeps the family stuck together, and I like that. Not every food on a Hawaiʻi table comes from the loʻi, the taro patch, or the imu, the earth oven. Some came in lunch tins and bakery boxes, in plantation camps and town shops, carried by Chinese, Japanese, Okinawan, Portuguese, Filipino, Korean, Puerto Rican, and other hands until Hawaiʻi made a Local table big enough to hold them all.
Gau is Hawaiʻi's Chinese New Year cake, our island way with nian gao, the steamed glutinous rice cake eaten for Lunar New Year. This is Hawaiʻi, and the hand is Chinese. Dark brown sugar, mochiko, water, sometimes coconut milk, steamed until the whole thing shines like polished wood and pulls under the knife. It isn't Kanaka Maoli deep food, and no need pretend. It's Local food, and Local food has its own truth.
Across the Triangle, the deep starches have their own names and their own hands: poi and paʻiʻai in Hawaiʻi, poʻe in Tahiti, popoi in the Marquesas, taro and breadfruit pounded and shared island by island. Gau is not one of those canoe-crop elder foods, but it sits beside them now in the real Hawaiʻi kitchen, next to mochi, malasadas, and butter mochi in the same way plate lunch sits beside laulau. Keeper, not gatekeeper.
So steam it steady and let it cool fully. The stickiness is the meaning and the texture both. Slice it small, share it wide, fry the leftovers if you get lucky enough to have leftovers. Eat what you have, and keep the family close.
Gau is Hawaiʻi's Local form of Chinese nian gao, a Lunar New Year rice cake brought by Chinese immigrants who began arriving in the islands in large numbers during the nineteenth-century sugar plantation era. In Chinese New Year food grammar, the name nian gao carries the sound of rising higher year by year, while the sticky texture stands for family bonds holding close. In Hawaiʻi it became part of the Local sweets register, not Kanaka Maoli deep food, sitting honestly beside mochi-shop sweets, malasadas, and bakery cakes on an island table shaped by many immigrant hands.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
mochiko, glutinous sweet rice flour
Quantity
1 pound
dark brown sugar
Quantity
2 cups
packed
Chinese brown sugar slabs or piloncillo
Quantity
1 cup
chopped, or 1 additional cup packed dark brown sugar
water
Quantity
2 1/2 cups
full-fat coconut milk
Quantity
1 can (13.5 ounces)
neutral oil
Quantity
2 tablespoons
plus more for the pan
fine sea salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
toasted sesame seeds
Quantity
2 tablespoons
for the top
dried red dates (optional)
Quantity
4 to 6
pitted and thinly sliced
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| mochiko, glutinous sweet rice flour | 1 pound |
| dark brown sugarpacked | 2 cups |
| Chinese brown sugar slabs or piloncillochopped, or 1 additional cup packed dark brown sugar | 1 cup |
| water | 2 1/2 cups |
| full-fat coconut milk | 1 can (13.5 ounces) |
| neutral oilplus more for the pan | 2 tablespoons |
| fine sea salt | 1/2 teaspoon |
| toasted sesame seedsfor the top | 2 tablespoons |
| dried red dates (optional)pitted and thinly sliced | 4 to 6 |
Equipment Needed
- •Large steamer or wide pot with a steaming rack
- •9-inch round cake pan or two 8-inch foil pans
- •Clean kitchen towel for wrapping the steamer lid
- •Fine-mesh sieve for smoothing batter
Instructions
- 1
Prepare the pan
Oil a 9-inch round cake pan or two 8-inch foil pans. Line the bottom with parchment and oil that too. Gau is sticky because it's supposed to be sticky, yeah, but you still want it to come home from the pan in one piece.
- 2
Melt the sugar
In a saucepan, combine the brown sugar, chopped Chinese brown sugar, water, coconut milk, oil, and salt. Warm over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves and the liquid turns dark and glossy. Do not boil hard. Let it cool until warm, not hot, so it doesn't seize the rice flour.
- 3
Make the batter
Put the mochiko in a large bowl. Pour in the warm sugar liquid a little at a time, whisking from the center outward until the batter is smooth, thick, and pourable, like heavy cream with weight to it. If you see lumps, pass it through a fine sieve. No shame. Smooth batter makes clean gau.
Mochiko is glutinous rice flour, but it has no gluten. It gives the cake that chewy pull, the same rice-flour family you see in mochi and other Hawaiʻi Local sweets. - 4
Fill and garnish
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, leaving at least a half inch of headroom. Tap the pan gently to settle bubbles. Scatter sesame seeds over the surface and lay on the red date slices if you're using them.
- 5
Steam it steady
Set the pan in a steamer over steadily simmering water, cover the lid with a clean towel to catch drips, then cover tight. Steam 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes, until the surface is set, dark, glossy, and a tester comes out with sticky crumbs but no wet batter. Keep the water gentle and refill with hot water if it runs low.
- 6
Cool completely
Lift the pan out and let the gau cool all the way, at least 4 hours, overnight if you can. Hot gau cuts rough and drags on the knife. Cooled gau firms into that good sticky chew, the kind that pulls a little before it lets go.
- 7
Slice and share
Run an oiled knife around the edge, unmold if you like, and cut into small wedges or squares. Serve plain, or pan-fry slices in a little oil until the edges go crisp and the middle turns soft again. That's the day-after joy.
Chef Tips
- •Use mochiko or another glutinous sweet rice flour, not regular rice flour. Regular rice flour will not give you that sticky New Year pull.
- •The towel under the steamer lid matters. If water drips back onto the cake, the top can turn pocked and wet instead of smooth and glossy.
- •Gau is better after a full rest. Make it the day before, then slice it clean the next day. Pan-fried leftover slices are the quiet prize.
Advance Preparation
- •Make the gau 1 day ahead and let it cool completely before covering. The texture firms and slices cleaner after an overnight rest.
- •Store tightly covered at room temperature for 1 day, or refrigerate up to 5 days. Oil the knife before slicing, and pan-fry chilled slices to bring back the soft chew.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 130g)
Calories
340 calories
Total Fat
8 g
Saturated Fat
5 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
3 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
90 mg
Total Carbohydrates
65 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
42 g
Protein
3 g
Where cooking meets culture.
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary ExplorerMore from Hawaiʻi Local Sweets & Bakery
Browse the full collection
Chef Makoa
Chichi Dango (Hawaiʻi Local Mochiko Candy for Girls' Day)
Soft squares of Hawaiʻi Local chichi dango, pale pink and white from the mochi-shop counter, baked with mochiko, milk, and coconut milk, then dusted until every sticky edge turns friendly.
Chef Makoa
Chinese Almond Cookies (Hawaiʻi Local Red-Dot Cookies)
Buttery, sandy Chinese almond cookies from Hawaiʻi's Local table, marked with the lucky red dot, the kind you found in a bakery case, a manapua man's box, or a holiday tin.
Chef Makoa
Chocolate Haupia Cream Pie (Hawaiʻi Local Coconut Pudding Pie)
A Hawaiʻi Local bakery pie from Oʻahu: firm coconut haupia over chocolate cream in a flaky shell, chilled clean, topped with soft whipped cream.