Kathleen's Kitchen

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Kathleen's Kitchen
Kathleen's Kitchen
How to bake cakes using the rice cooker (Japanese cheesecake or chiffon-style cake)

How to bake cakes using the rice cooker (Japanese cheesecake or chiffon-style cake)

a great hack for those who don't have an oven or are on the fence about investing in a good rice cooker

Kat Lieu's avatar
Kat Lieu
Dec 29, 2024
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Kathleen's Kitchen
Kathleen's Kitchen
How to bake cakes using the rice cooker (Japanese cheesecake or chiffon-style cake)
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Purple ube cake in a rice cooker
Ube chiffon cake by Kat Lieu

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Dear friend,

I’ve had my trusty Zojirushi rice cooker for nearly eight years, and lately, I’ve been cooking many rice cooker one-pot meals and cakes. Before we move on, however, I have to say that I’m not sure if you’ll achieve the same results as I have if you’re using a different style of rice cooker, a pressure cooker, or an Insta-Pot. I’ve only tested my recipes using this exact rice cooker.

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So, please note that before you try the recipes and use your appliance to make the cakes. People have burnt their cakes or destroyed their appliances before because they’re not using my exact appliance.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

My Modern Asian Kitchen x Kat Lieu is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I love baking with my rice cooker because I can use my standard recipes without changing them. My Japanese cheesecake and chiffon cake recipes are both in Modern Asian Baking at Home, my first cookbook, and it’s only 49 cents on Amazon right now as an ebook.

I’ve also shared my rice cooker fluffy sponge cake recipe and my base and best Japanese cheesecake recipe, along with many tips to help you perfect the notoriously hard-to-bake cotton cheesecakes.

Preorder my next cookbook, 108 Asian Cookies, and get a free year-long premium subscription to my Substack here!

Let’s get started.

For both styles of cakes, you want to grease the inner pot with some unsalted butter or olive oil. Even though my rice cooker’s inner pot is non-stick, the oiled surface will help your cake pop out more easily.

Then, you want to cook the cake in one cycle first, and usually, I choose the “Mixed” setting. This one cycle will not be enough to fully cook the cake, by the way, so when the rice cooker finishes, give it a few minutes to cool down before cooking the cake again. My rice cooker tells me that it is still too hot to cook again. At this point, just wait patiently. Your cake will be just fine as it chills in the rice cooker. Once the rice cooker has cooled, you can use another mode, such as “Hard.”

The cake is ready when the center and top are set, and you’ll see the cake pull away a little from the inner pot, especially if it’s the Japanese cheesecake. Ensure the cake is fully set; otherwise, it can break apart when you flip it out of the inner pot.

The easiest way to flip the cake out is to, well, follow what I do in my videos! It’s easier to explain visually.

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Because the rice cooker continuously retains heat, you’ll find that your cakes won’t shrink or deflate as much. Due to its lower flour content, the Japanese cheesecake does shrink more than my spongecakes. *Air needs something to contain it, like gluten networks. Otherwise, it just escapes with steam, and hence that’s why most souffles and souffle-style cakes deflate.

Now, another thing I love about baking with my rice cooker is how even the heating is. It’s like you’re steaming the cakes. And with a lot of room to rise, I’ve found that the tops of my cakes don’t crack, even when leavened with more baking powder than usual.

Finally, a word about the Japanese cheesecake: It does, admittedly, taste quite eggy without the addition of flavoring, such as vanilla extract, lemon juice, or Japanese whisky. And if you like denser cheesecakes, like I do, refrigerate the Japanese cheesecake overnight.

And there, my friend is how to bake perfect cakes using a rice cooker. And for my premium subs…

JAPANESE CHEESECAKE TROUBLESHOOTING:

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