Muah Chee is a type of Malaysian sticky rice balls coated with sugar, grounded roasted peanuts or grounded roasted black sesame seeds. It was a popular snack among Malaysian. Muah Chee was made from glutinous rice flour and tasted soft, chewy, and springy. It was similar to Japanese Mochi and Korean Chapssaltteok but much easier to make. There’re two way of making the rice cake dough – using steamer or microwave. In this recipe, I’m using microwave as it was easier and quicker to make.

Ingredients for rice cake dough:

• 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour a.k.a sweet rice flour
• 1/2 tablespoon sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup warm water

Ingredients for topping:

• 3 tablespoon black sesame seeds
• 1 tablespoon sugar (adjustable; depends on individual preference)

Instructions for topping:

1. Heat up a pan and place the sesame seeds in. Turn the heat to the lowest.
2. Keep stirring continually until you can smell the aroma and the seeds are slightly popping.
3. Turn the heat off and cool it down.
4. Once cooled, blend it in a blender. Pulse it a few times and then shake or loosen it with a spoon or spatula. Cover it back and continue blending process until it turns into powder.
5. Pour the black sesame seeds powder into a plate and lei it cool down. Once cooled down, mix it with sugar and set aside.

Instructions for rice cake dough:

1. In a large deep bowl, combine sweet rice flour, salt, sugar and warm water. Mix well with a rice scooper, spatula, wooden spoon or anything preferred.
2. Mix until it forms a sticky dough (no liquid left but not too dry- sticky texture). Place the rice cake dough at the centre of the bowl.
3. Cover the bowl with plastic food wrap. Don’t cover the whole bowl, leave some space at the side to let the air flow out while cooking the rice cake in the microwave.
4. Put in the microwave and cook for 1 minute.
5. After 1 minute, take it out and mix the rice cake dough to let the other part of the rice cake cooked. Put it back in the microwave and cook for another 30 seconds until no white flour is longer to be seen.
6. Knead the freshly cooked rice cake as many times as you can; up to 50 times, 80 times. The more you knead the rice cake, the chewier it will be.
7. Pick up the dough with a chopstick or a fork and cut the dough into small pieces using a pair of kitchen scissors. Wet the kitchen scissors with cool water before cutting as the rice cake dough will be too sticky to cut out.
8. Coat all of the rice cake balls with black sesame powder topping and serve immediately.