How to Make Rice Cakes

peanut butter

🥗Healthier: almond butter

💰Cheaper: sunflower seed butter

Almond butter offers a healthier fat profile.

honey

🥗Healthier: agave syrup

💰Cheaper: maple syrup

Agave syrup is lower on the glycemic index.

chocolate chips

🥗Healthier: dark chocolate

💰Cheaper: cocoa powder

Dark chocolate has less sugar.

almond slices

🥗Healthier: walnut pieces

💰Cheaper: sunflower seeds

Sunflower seeds are more affordable.

Wet your fingers and mold cooked sticky rice into circular cake shapes. Wetting your fingers prevents the sticky rice from sticking to your fingers. Then, gently pull away about 1 tbsp of rice and mold it into a circular cake shape that is about 2 in in diameter. Use your fingers to press down on the rice and flatten it so it's thin, but don't press so hard that you make holes in the rice.

Let the shaped cakes dry at room temperature for 1-2 hours. Check that they've dried completely by gently trying to bend and break them. They should be pretty firm when they are dry.

Pour 3 tbsp of olive oil into a skillet. You may need to add more or less depending on the size of your skillet. The layer of oil should still be relatively thin, but also deep enough so that the cakes can be fully submerged in the oil as they're cooking.

Bring the oil to a boil at 400 °F. Use a cooking thermometer placed in the skillet to know when the oil is at the right temperature. It's important to make sure that the oil is hot enough, because this results in a rice cake that is more crisp and less greasy.

Place 1-2 rice cakes in the oil. Using tongs, place the 1-2 rice cakes in the oil. You're essentially going to deep-fry them.

Remove the rice cakes from the oil when they rise to the surface. Use tongs to remove the cakes from the oil when they expand and rise to the surface — that's when you know that they're done. The rice cakes will cook pretty quickly, so usually about 30 seconds in the oil is plenty. The rice should be fairly white with no discolorations.

Serve the rice cakes within one day of making them. It's best to serve your cakes as soon as possible after frying them.

Equipment Needed

Spice Level:

Dietary

Allergens