Sweet-savory treat defies easy description

Bite into this morsel and you might have problems assigning it to an exact dessert genre. Cupcake? No. Cheese­cake? Not really. Mochi? Maybe.

Its formal name is Quesadilla Salvadorena, although few of us would recognize it as a quesadilla, either.

So that’s a lot of things it is not. What it is, is gluten free.

Robin Yamashita sent in her recipe last month, in response to a reader’s request for gluten-free desserts she could make for her daughter. Yamashita described it as “like a savory-sweet mochi cake.”

In El Salvador this buttery, cheesy bite provides not-too-sweet breakfast sustenance, like a scone or a muffin. It is often described as a pound cake, but really isn’t dense enough to deserve that name. If you can imagine pao de queijo, those little balls of Brazilian cheese bread, you’d be in the ballpark.

The recipe is simple. I studied several versions, including some in Spanish (thank you, Google Translate), to nail down the basic ingredients: rice flour, eggs, lots of butter and sugar. A sprinkling of sesame seeds goes on top. The cheese could be queso fresco, a soft, mild cheese similar to feta, but most recipes use a grated hard cheese such as Parmesan. It may be made with milk or sour cream.

The cakes are baked in round pans and sliced in wedges, in loaves and sliced like bread, in cake pans and sliced in squares.

Yamashita’s recipe, from food52.com, calls for baking the cakes in muffin tins, so I’ve kept that form. The rest of the recipe is tweaked slightly based on my research. The amount of sugar can be varied — I used 3/4 cup, but you could use less to keep it on the savory side, or more for a sweeter treat.

QUESADILLA SALVADORENA

By Robin Yamashita

• 1 cup rice flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 to 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin tin (see note).

Whisk together rice flour and baking powder.

Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well between additions. Beat in sour cream.

Add flour mixture, beating to make a smooth batter. Fold in cheese.

Spoon batter into muffin tins, filling cups nearly to the top (cakes won’t rise much). Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake 15-20 minutes, until springy to the touch. Makes 14-18, depending on amount of sugar used.

>> NOTE: Rather than use two 12-cup muffin tins, you could fill one tin, then pour the excess batter into a small loaf pan. The pan will produce a thin cake that can be cut into small squares — like mochi — and rolled in more sesame seeds.

Nutritional information unavailable.

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