Orange Mochi Thing

My daughter loves to help me with baking. It's one of her favorite past times.

Anyway this is a combination between a recipe for pumpkin mochi (Japanese sticky rice cake) and Lebanese flourless orange cake. I am not really sure what to call it, but it tastes good.

I like using glutinous rice powder and mixing it with banana, pears and all kinds of blended fruit. The texture always turns out very surprising... very rich without being heavy. It also seems to work well with fruit that is about to spoil, so I use bananas that are turning black or tangerines that have become a darker orange.

This makes around 6-8 pieces.

Ingredients:

1 cup of mochiko (glutinous rice powder, can be found in the Asian section of most supermarkets)
1/4 cup of bisquick
1/2 cup of splenda for baking
1/2 cup of sugar (I use all splenda but it tastes better with half sugar)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons of chopped almonds
1/2 cup of applesauce
4 tangerines (I used small ones, clementines)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup of egg whites or 2 eggs
1/2 cup of soy milk


Preheat oven to 350.

Mix together dry ingredients.

In a large microwave safe bowl, take the 4 tangerines and microwave with halfway full of water for 4 1/2 minutes. Rinse in cold water to let them cool. Do not peel. Cut them into four pieces, carefully look for any seeds and take them out (the seeds will cause this to taste bitter, so this is important! One seed in the mix will ruin the whole recipe).

In a food processor grind the chopped almonds until they have formed a powder, then add the pieces of tangerine (again, do not peel... grind with the skin.) Finally add the soy milk and grind well.

Add this mixture to the dry ingredients, as well as the rest of the wet ingredients (egg, vanilla, applesauce.) Spray a breadpan or small casserole dish (mine was 6" by 10") with Pam, pour in mixture. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until light brown on top. Let cool for 45 minutes before eating.

Substitutions:

If you want to make it gluten free leave out the bisquick. Also tried this with two tangerines and 1 mashed banana, still turned out great. Can substitute an orange if tangerines are not in season, but you might want to use only 1/2 the peel since it's quite a bit thicker. I have used canned fruit successfully also such as pineapple, pears, and peaches.