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This is called “Masi”, a stuffed sticky rice cake from Cebu, a province in the Philippines! You’re gonna need peanuts, brown sugar, and glutinous rice flour for that chewy texture, like mochi. It’s typically stuffed with crushed peanuts and muscovado sugar, but we’re substituting brown sugar since it may be easier for a lot of you to get.
What is Masi?
Masi is a simple kakanin (Filipino rice cake desserts) that is chewy balls of glutinous rice flour dough filled with peanuts and sugar. It is all brought together by boiling in water.
Masi is essentially peanut filled palitaw.
Ingredients for Masi
Masi only has four ingredients: glutinous rice flour, water, peanuts, and brown sugar. This means it is naturally gluten-free (glutinous rice flour has no gluten) and can be vegan if vegan sugar is used (pure cane sugar).
Variations of Masi
Of course, there are many possible variations of masi. This masi recipe just describes how to make the version that is filled with sugar and peanuts.
There is another version that uses mung bean filling instead of peanuts and of course, you can use a variety of sugars such as coconut sugar.
You could also pour latik syrup over the top. You can find directions on how to make latik syrup on my suman recipe page.
How to Make Masi – Step by Step
For full list of ingredients and detailed steps, check out the bottom of this page.
Masi is super easy to make. Start by chopping peanuts. Then mix together the glutinous rice flour and water. Form the dough into discs and fill with peanuts and brown sugar before closing up. Then boil until they float!
Chop peanuts and then mix with brown sugar
Mix glutinous rice flour and water until the pictured consistency is achieved.
Form dough into discs and fill with peanuts and brown sugar. Pinch to close and seal.
Drop dough into boiling water and remove when they float!
FAQs
Masi is naturally gluten-free. Glutinous rice flour contains no gluten. It only describes the chewy texture.
This masi recipe only has 4 ingredients: glutinous rice flour, water, brown sugar, and peanuts
Yes you can use white sugar but I think brown sugar brings an extra dimension of flavor.
While it may have similar ingredients, masi is not the same as Japanese mochi. Japanese mochi has a distinction of being pounded.
Links
Ozeri Food Scale
Especially with baking, a food scale is extremely helpful as it measures weight, not volume, which is more accurate. You should use weight measurements if a recipe provides them.
Glutinous Rice Flour
Glutinous Rice Flour should also be easily found at your local Asian supermarket. It should cost much different than regular rice flour.
Recipe
Last updated October 2025
Peanut Stuffed Sticky Rice (Filipino Masi)
Ingredients
Method
- First, finely chop your peanuts if they are still whole.
- In a bowl, mix together the brown sugar and peanuts.
- In a separate bowl, combine the glutinous rice flour and water. You can use chopsticks or a wooden spoon to mix until it becomes a smooth paste (see photos).
- Grab about a couple tablespoons of dough and flatten into a circle. Curl your hands so the dough forms a cup, and pour in some of the peanut and sugar mixture.
- Pinch and seal the dough, and roll it into a smooth ball. Place it on a plastic-wrap lined plate, and repeat until you’ve used up all the dough.
- In a medium pot, boil enough water to cover the rice balls. Add the rice balls and wait until they float. This should only take about 5 minutes.
- Remove the rice balls from the water, and enjoy while hot!
More Recipes
This recipe continues my series of kakanin, Filipino rice based desserts. You can find the others on my website:
- Puto is a soft and fluffy rice cake topped with something salty. In my case, American yellow cheese.
- Cassava Cake is a bouncier flan that uses cassava as a base. It is topped with custard.
- My siblings fight over kutsinta, a sugar and glutinous rice mixture that is steamed.
- Palitaw is probably the most basic and easiest kakanin you can make.
- Biko is caramelized sticky rice on a bed of banana leaves that is my favorite of all kakanin
- Sapin-sapin is the iconic tri-colored rice cake that blends ube, jackfruit, and coconut flavors
- Pichi-pichi is cassava based sweet bites covered in shredded coconut
- Suman is glutinous rice and brown sugar steamed in banana leaves