Rice cake

Any food made by pounding, shaping, compressing, steaming or puffing rice or rice flour into a cake-like form.

Rice cake: An assortment of rice cakes: round white mochi, sliced cylindrical tteok and a puffed rice disc arranged together
  • Cakes, cookies, pastries and baked goods

Rice cakes cover a huge family of foods. In East and Southeast Asia, glutinous rice is steamed and pounded into chewy mochi and tteok, rice flour is steamed into soft cakes like puto and nian gao, and plain rice is compressed into lontong and ketupat. In Western supermarkets, the term usually means light, crunchy discs of puffed rice.

Many rice cakes are sweet, filled with bean paste or flavored with coconut and palm sugar, while others are plain and served with savory dishes. They are central to holidays such as the Lunar New Year, when sticky rice cakes symbolize good fortune and togetherness.

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Written by VanillaGoods in our own words from these sources. Last reviewed October 15, 2026.

  1. Rice cake making designated intangible cultural heritage, Korea.net (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Republic of Korea)