About the Recipe
What would happen if espasol was a cookie? The chewy, coconut, toasty rice cake from laguna is already pretty solid on its own, and is an iconic treat for gifts especially during the holidays. but if it was a cookie, it would be your regular boneless cookie but with coconut sugar, brown butter infused with sweet rice, and a coconut milk chewy center made with toasted glutinous rice flour, like how you would made the original espasol! Of course, you can add macapuno into the chewy center but I just didn’t have any and its totally optional.
I covered the whole cookie with toasted rice flour and icing sugar to just get that extra toasted rice flavour that is so iconic in espasol and there you have the espasol cookie!
Ingredients
Mochi:
80 g glutinous rice flour, toasted on pan until light brown
30 g powdered sugar
240 ml coconut milk
Cookie:
250 g coconut sugar
155 g all-purpose flour
140 g browned butter
50 g sweet rice
1 tsp salt
0.5 tsp baking soda
1 egg
1 Tsp vanilla extract
For dusting:
50 g glutinous rice flour, toasted on pan until light brown
30 g powdered sugar
Preparation
1.Slowly melt butter on low heat with washed sweet rice, continuously mixing. Once completely melted, let simmer for 5 minutes. Strain to remove sweet rice. Brown butter completely on medium heat.
2. Whisk together cooled browned butter and coconut sugar until smooth.
3. Thoroughly whisk in one egg until it is lighter in colour, add the vanilla extract and whisk.
4. fold in the dry ingredients.
5. Mix the mochi filling ingredients together. Microwave for one and a half minutes and mix together. Let set in the fridge until it has completely cooled, about 15-30 minutes.
6. Cut the dough into 30g pieces, flatten each one and place 12g of the mochi filling inside, wrapping it up. Place on a tray lined with parchment paper.*
7. Mix glutinous rice flour and powdered sugar together for dusting. Dust powder mixture on top of each cookie.
8. Bake at 350F for 10-11 minutes, just until the middle is still soft but the edges are browned.
9. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before enjoying!
*Note: To get a deeper flavour, let it rest in the fridge for at least one hour or you can freeze it for up to a month!