Soft, chewy, and stretchy mochi bread infused with mashed purple sweet potato is easy to make and is naturally gluten-free and eggless. The recipe works great with regular sweet potatoes too. A video tutorial is available too
At this point in life, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’m pretty hooked with mini cheese mochi bread. It’s all started with that recipe and since then I’ve made this purple sweet potato version and also the chocolate mochi bread loaf. With the shortages of yeast and also wheat flour (if you are still experiencing that problem), it’s great to use alternative flour like glutinous rice flour and tapioca starch/flour, which also happen to be gluten-free.
TYPE OF PURPLE SWEET POTATOES TO USE
I have used Stokes purple sweet potatoes, Okinawan purple sweet potatoes and also ube (Filipino yam).
HOW TO MAKE NO-YEAST EGGLESS PURPLE SWEET POTATO MOCHI BREAD
1. COOK THE SWEET POTATO
You will need about 1 medium-large sweet potato. Peel the skin and cut into smaller pieces. If you have a pressure cooker like Instant Pot, place the sweet potato in a steamer basket. Pour 1 cup of water into a pot and put the steamer basket on top of a trivet. Pressure cook on high for 2 minutes. Release pressure immediately and mash the sweet potatoes while they are warm. You can also use a steamer and steam on the stove on high heat for 10 minutes or until they are fork-tender
2. PREPARE THE DOUGH
Preheat oven to 375 F (180 C) for a conventional oven. If you use a convection oven please lower the temperature by 20 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone mat. Combine tapioca flour, glutinous rice, flour, and baking powder, mix to combine. Put the milk and butter in a saucepan. Simmer until the butter melts and then bring to a point of boiling and then turn off immediately. You need to make sure it comes to a rolling boil before turning off the heat. Immediately sift in the flour mixture
Then add mashed purple sweet potatoes, sugar, and ube extract (if using). Use a sturdy spatula to stir and combine into a rough dough and then use your hands to knead into a dough. It should be a slightly sticky dough. If it’s too dry you can add a bit more milk, teaspoon by teaspoon. Each brand of flour has different liquid absorption. So you may or may not need to add extra liquid. I didn’t have to.
3. SHAPING
Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces for mini size or 12-14 for slightly larger size
Roll them into round balls. Place on the baking sheet about at least 1-inch apart. If the dough is a bit sticky you can lightly spray your palms with non-stick spray or just lightly oil your palm. Try not to add anymore flour
4. BAKING
Place baking sheet in the middle rack and bake for about 20 minutes until the bottom is slightly golden brown for small bread and 25-30 minutes for a larger size. Some of the bread may crack a little as it rises, that’s normal. If too many cracks, next time you can mist the shaped dough with some water before putting it into the oven. I didn’t do this
Remove from the oven and let stand for about 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to let them cool down completely. They are best eaten when fresh. Once cooled down, the inside remains moist and stretchy
TIPS YOU NEED TO KNOW
1. Please make sure when you melt the butter and milk, the milk comes to a boil and then immediately turn off and sift in the flour mixture and the rest of the ingredients. This is important to get a nice soft pliable dough
4. I recommend adding ube extract (purple in color), or purple sweet potato powder if you have any. Some purple sweet potatoes may change color because of acid/base balance. So by adding food coloring/extract, the color changes won’t show in the end product
WILL MOCHI BREAD STAYS SOFT FOR DAYS?
No, they won’t. They taste the best the same day you make them, preferably within 3-4 hours. They will stretch the most when they are warm. The next day, they would harden a bit which is typical of gluten-free bread, but still reasonably soft compared to the older recipe I’ve made. You can warm them up in a preheated oven/toaster oven or air-fryer at 350 F for 5-8 minutes and they will back to that slightly crisp outside, soft and stretchy texture again on the inside.
DID YOU MAKE THIS EASY NO-YEAST PURPLE SWEET POTATO MOCHI BREAD RECIPE?
I love it when you guys snap a photo and tag to show me what you’ve made 🙂 Simply tag me @WhatToCookToday #WhatToCookToday on Instagram and I’ll be sure to stop by and take a peek for real!
OTHER MOCHI BREAD RECIPES YOU MIGHT LIKE:
Easy No-Yeast Gluten-Free Chocolate Mochi Bread Loaf
Super Easy Mini Cheddar Mochi Bread
*Latest update June 2, 2020: I have worked on this recipe for months trying to improve the texture and to make it really stretchy. I decided to replace the older version with this improved one, which is WAYYY better, like seriously better! Not to mention I managed to make it eggless too LOL! I’m happy*
Easy No-Yeast Purple Sweet Potato Mochi Bread (Eggless)
Ingredients
Please weigh your ingredients by weight for the best result!
Dry ingredients:
- 100 gr milk or more as needed
- 20 gr butter
- 100 gr tapioca flour
- 40 gr glutinous rice flour or more as needed
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 50 gr sugar or more to your taste
- 100 gr mashed purple sweet potato
Food coloring (use one of the following):
- ¼ tsp ube extract
- 5 gr purple yam powder
- Few drops purple food coloring
Instructions
Cook the sweet potato:
- You will need about 1 medium-large sweet potato. Peel the skin and cut into smaller pieces. If you have a pressure cooker like Instant Pot, place the sweet potato in a steamer basket. Pour 1 cup of water into a pot and put the steamer basket on top of a trivet. Pressure cook on high for 2 minutes. Release pressure immediately and mash the sweet potatoes while they are warm. You can also use a steamer and steam on the stove on high heat for 10 minutes or until they are fork-tender
Prepare the dough:
- Preheat oven to 375 F (180 C) for a conventional oven. If you use a convection oven please lower the temperature by 20 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone mat. Combine tapioca flour, glutinous rice, flour, and baking powder, mix to combine. Put the milk and butter in a saucepan. Simmer until the butter melts and then bring to a point of boiling and then turn off immediately. You need to make sure it comes to a rolling boil before turning off the heat
- Immediately sift in the flour mixture and then add mashed purple sweet potatoes, sugar, and ube extract/food coloring (if using). Use a sturdy spatula to stir and combine into a rough dough and then use your hands to knead into a dough. It should be a slightly sticky dough. If it’s too dry you can add a bit more milk, teaspoon by teaspoon. Each brand of flour has different liquid absorption. So you may or may not need to add extra liquid. I didn’t have to.
Shaping:
- Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces for mini size or 12-14 for a slightly larger size. If the dough is a bit sticky you can lightly spray your palms with non-stick spray or just lightly oil your palm. Try not to add anymore flour. Place on the baking sheet about at least 1-inch apart
Baking:
- Place baking sheet in the middle rack and bake for about 20 minutes until the bottom is slightly golden brown for small bread and 25-30 minutes for a larger size. Some of the bread may crack a little as it rises, that’s normal. If too many cracks, next time you can mist the shaped dough with some water before putting into the oven. I didn't do this
- Remove from the oven and let stand for about 5 minutes and then transfer to cooling rack to let them cool down completely. They are best eaten when fresh and stretchy when they are freshly baked. Once cooled down, they will start to harden but if you warm it up again, it will be soft again
Storage and reheating:
- Store them in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 2-3 days (they don't last that long at our house). Wrap them in plastic wrap and then freeze if you want to store them longer. Thaw in the refrigerator before reheating
- To reheat in oven or toaster oven, spray with some mist of water and then wrap them in aluminum foil and then bake at 350 for 5 minutes. To reheat in microwave, cover the bread with some moist clean kitchen towel or paper towel and heat for about 1 minute or less
Notes
- You can also use regular sweet potatoes. I used fresh purple sweet potatoes and regular sweet potatoes, but you can also use canned sweet potatoes if they are available. Drain the liquid but save about 3-4 Tbsp in case you need it when you make the dough
16 comments
Hi. I made the old version of this recipe and loved it. Today I tried making this updated version but, using the amount of flour stated in the recipe, my dough was Way too wet and sticky. So I added more but even after adding Much more than the recipe stated the dough was still the same mess. I didn’t seem right to me that I would have to add so much more glutinous rice flour (to the point where it was numerous tablespoons more than the recipe’s stated 3 tablespoons) and then still have to add more to get something somewhat like a dough, but still not really. I kept adding flour to make it somewhat workable but ended up putting it in the oven while it was still pretty sticky just because I had already added so much extra glutinous rice flour than the recipe asked for. Any idea why my dough never really became dough-like even though I started by following the exact recipe and like it said I added more flour a bit at a time? Even with all that flour it went in the oven as a dough that still seemed much too sticky and came out with the insides much more like actual mochi than a bread texture. Thank you!
Hi Noa,
I just realized that the cups and tbsp measurements I posted weren’t accurate. I used an automatic conversion (I know not to use that anymore especially for specialty flour/starch like glutinous rice flour, tapioca flour, etc. The tool apparently is not accurate for that). I usually use a scale to measure all the baking here so I don’t usually use cups and tbsp. The amount of flour/starch needed are way more than what the original conversion were. If you have scale, I would definitely go for the scale for accuracy. But, I have updated the US customary measurement. Sorry for the trouble!
Hello Marv, I just tried making this. I substituted the sweet potato for pumpkin in 1:1 ratio, and substituted tapioca starch with corn flour in 2:1 ratio. It was too wet. So I added another 12g of corn flour and 52g until the tackiness looked like your picture. The end result was a very thick crust with a very strong flour taste :/ Do you have any suggestions how I could improve the ingredients proportion if I want to use pumpkin instead of sweet potatoes?
Hi XY, pumpkin has higher moisture content compared to purple sweet potatoes. Purple sweet potatoes tend to be at the drier side. You probably don’t want to keep adding the starch/flour. Did you add any other liquid? maybe try to control the amount of liquid so the dough won’t be too wet. You may not even need any liquid considering how moist mashed pumpkin is
Hi Marv! Would like to check if normal baking powder work? Does it have to be “aluminum free”?
Hi Elaine, it will work with normal baking powder too. You may notice a bit of color change if you use purple sweet potato, but it shouldn’t affect the taste.
Omg! I made a Ube mash for Thanksgiving scented with Orange zest and cardamom. Had plenty left over so found your recipe and made a double batch! Delicious! I should’ve added a little less butter to account for what was in the mash and I believe they came out a little less chewy because of it. But the flavor is fantastic. Thank you!
Hi Kate, wow..ube mash with orange zest and cardamom sounds heavenly!! I’m glad you can turn the leftover into this mochi bread instead 🙂 what a great idea!
Hi Marvellina,
I love this recipe and I’m looking forward to making it to surprise my little girl who is a fan of Violet colour.
I live in Switzerland and here I don’t find Purple Sweet Potato but Purple Potato (or Blue potato as they are called here, but they are super purple). Comparing by the photos, these potatoes have thinner and shiny skin. They aren’t sweet.
I guess they would work for the colour and texture, but maybe I should use more sugar?
Would you dare to tell me how much sugar to use? Or I can add to the dough at the end bit by bit when I have it mixed and try the flavour and add more if needed?
Thank you!
Hi Tamara, yes the purple potatoes would be less sweet. Maybe can try adding about 15-20 grams extra sugar?
Thanks for the recipe. I just made these today and they were delicious. However, my buns were more gray than purple. Yours were so vibrant. Also, my cracks were a lot bigger, could it be because I didn’t spray a mist of water on the buns? I didn’t have a spray so I used my fingers to sprinkle some water on the buns instead.
Hi Mandy, it could be the combinations of the egg yolks and the purple from the sweet potatoes that turn the color into more grayish. If I use stokes sweet potatoes, the color is fine, but if I use ube yam then the color will be more grayish then purple. As long as the bread isn’t dry , I won’t worry too much about the cracks, because mochi bread to have that “crackly” appearance.
Just finished rounding out the dough and it’ll go in the oven soon! For some odd reason, my purple yams turned into a weird turquoise/teal color after I combined it with eggs and butter…we shall see how they look upon leaving the oven…
Hi rc, did you use ube yam? I know that ube yam will turn color when you combined with eggs, though it doesn’t affect the taste, but the color may change.
Hi Marvellina! I absolutely love mochi-type breads and would like to try out this recipe, but do you think I can do without the egg and replace the butter with margarine or oil (basically make it vegan)? Thanks so much 🙂
Hi Laura, I haven’t tried it on this recipe myself, but in the past I’ve replaced eggs with chia eggs on other baking recipe. 1 Tbsp chia seeds + 3 Tbsp of water = 1 egg. So in this case it would be 3 Tbsp chia seeds + 9 Tbsp of water. The result might be a bit “denser” and may not rise as much. I’ve heard about vegan egg replacer too, but I haven’t tried that myself. As for the butter, yes, you can definitely use margarine or cooking oil of your choice 🙂