The Best Party Dessert Comes From Hawaii

What’s not to love about butter mochi? It’s simple to make, fun to eat and easy to customize.

When the chef Sheldon Simeon checks out at the Foodland supermarket near his home on Maui, he can’t resist grabbing a tray of the golden butter mochi sitting by the register. The customers at Tin Roof, the lunch counter he owns with his wife, Janice Simeon, in Kahului, are just as tempted by the peanut-butter-frosted and rainbow-sprinkled chocolate version he sells. Butter mochi is irresistible nostalgia, a local dessert beloved throughout Hawaii and beyond. The dessert, which Kathy YL Chan, the author of the blog Onolicious Hawai’i, describes as “the perfect combo of cake and mochi,” is a universal favorite, ever-present at birthday parties and bake sales, family gatherings and graduations. “It’s not a big-deal dessert — it’s casual,” she said. “You always expect it to be at a potluck. That’s what makes it so awesome.”