Mochi...

So this vaguely pornographic-looking food is mochi. Its made out of sweet rice flour (basically a short-grain rice) and is available in refrigerated sections of your local health food stores. Its supposed to be squares that puff up and are chewy inside, but it usually erupts into these shapes... if its overcooked too much, it becomes hollow, and truly phallic looking. (I should have taken a pic of my first batch, they were unique).

Its very tasty, I eat 'em with creme fraiche, but I just wish I could get them to work properly.

I've tried letting them come to room temp, smaller squares, larger squares, lower temp, higher temp...I've even tried to do them on the stovetop...they do ok on the stovetop, but they stay very very dense then.