Recipe Redux: Filipino Rice Cakes

Happy first birthday to Recipe Redux!  What a great group to be a part of. Thank you to Serena, Deanna, and Regan for your wonderful leadership!

Filipino Rice Cakes (Puto)--they're really bite size, but look big here.

So, in celebration of Recipe Redux's first birthday, the theme of this month is "Small Bites to Celebrate a Big Event". Immediately I thought of all of the Filipino celebrations I have attended since birth and have always enjoyed the festive looking small rice cakes. Now before I go on, I must warn you. The real name of this Filipino dessert sounds like a Spanish not-so-nice-word, but please trust me, as I use it here I am not using it in the Spanish manner and Filipinos are not using the word to name this dessert something bad.;) Okay, so having said that, the name of this Filipino rice cake is puto.:) Alright, you can get it out of your system and laugh it all out!:-D

This Filipino rice cake is usually just white; however, I have seen it and eaten it in various colors. For Recipe Redux's celebration I have made them a few different colors. There are so many variations to this Filipino rice cake, especially when it comes to texture, but they all have the same, or similar wonderful flavor.

Since I didn't want to re-invent the wheel, I took the puto recipe of EntrePinoys Atbp., and modified it. Their recipe is good, but I like desserts not too sweet, just slightly sweet. I reduced the sugar a bit and coconut milk. Then I increased the rice flour content since I wasn't getting the texture I personally was envisioning. If you look at other Filipino rice cake recipes, they mainly use rice flour, but some use other flours. To me, the best flour to use for puto is rice flour which you can buy at an Asian or Filipino market.

Ingredients:
2 1/3 cups of rice flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 3/4 cup coconut milk
3/4 cup sugar

Directions:
1.Mix well together the rice flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar together.
2.Add the coconut milk to the dry ingredients mixture
3.(Optional) I don't really use food flavoring on a regular basis, but for this festive look and if you would like, divide the puto mixture into equal parts into several small bowls depending on how many colors you want. Follow the instructions on the food coloring box to obtain the desired color you would like. 
4. Pour the mixture into muffin tins or pans. (I used small individual muffin tins, so they are bit size, but they don't look bite-size in the picture I took.)
5. Steam for at least 30 minutes or until a toothpick pulled out is clean.
6. Puto tastes best when served warm; however, wait to cool completely before placing in containers.

These Filipino rice cakes are very easy to make! Enjoy!!

Also, please take a look down below to see the other wonderful recipes my friends have developed this month.

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What is your favorite Filipino dessert?

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