Yak Sik is a delicious Korean sticky rice dessert, but it’s $6 for a small rectangle. The cost is partially the result of the expensive additions of chestnuts, pine nuts and dates. Regardless, $6 is enough for me to make my own version.

There are a few yaksik recipes online and I used kimchmari’s yaksik recipe as a baseline. Her version is an impressive 4 of rice cup version, but yaksik is highly perishable and I needed only enough to replace the supermarket portion.

To use an Instant Pot, I needed a sticky rice recipe. Fortunately, pressurecookrecipe’s sticky rice recipe looked solid. Plus it offered no pre-soak time for the rice.

So combining the two recipes, I have the following yaksik recipe with an Instant Pot.

Ingredients

• 200g sweet rice
• 170g water
• 70g brown sugar
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tbs sesame oil
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
• Chestnut, raisins, pine nuts

Instructions

1. Set up Instant Pot for steaming, 1″ water and steamer rack.
2. In a bowl, place 200g sweet and 170g water. Put on steamer rack and set Instant Pot to Manual (HP) for 12 min.
3. While Instant Pot is working, make the sauce by combining the brown sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil and brown sugar.
4. After cooking has completed, let rest for 10 min then release.
5. Add sauce to rice and mix thoroughly. Add nuts and dried fruit and combine.
6. Set Instant Pot to steam for 5 min. The steaming time is up to you. The more you steam, the more the individual grains break down and the yaksik forms a cohesive mass.
7. Pour yaksik into a container and let cool to room temperature.