For those of you who haven’t had mochi before, it’s a truly delicious dessert!  It has an interesting texture that could be an acquired one.  My friend once said that it is a mix between a gummy bear and a marshmallow.  This was my very first attempt at making these squishy beings, they didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted them too (I think mine were too soft) but next time I can work on perfecting the mixture and process. This recipe is courtesy of my ever-so-amazing MIL.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Mochiko sweet rice flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• food coloring (optional)
• red bean paste for filling

Figure (a)                                                                               Figure (b)

Directions

1. Mix together Mochiko flour, sugar, water (and optional food coloring) in a bowl. Figure (a)

2. Cover bowl with a plate and microwave on high for 2 minutes (this is the quick method).  You could also put the mixture in a steamer for 30-40 minutes until the dough is set (but that seems like a lot of extra work to me and I like simple). Figure (b)

3. (As needed) OK this is probably the most difficult part and it takes practice.  If the mixture is too hard, add more water.  If the mixture is too soft, add more Mochiko flour.  It’s kind of difficult to virtually describe what the texture should be like… but hopefully the above amount of ingredients should work.  If you add any of these, make sure to mix vigorously and put the dough back in microwave for another 30 seconds or so.

4. Dust your working surface generously with flour.

5. With a wet spoon, grab a clump of mochi about 2 tablespoons in size.

6. Use two wet spoons to flatten the mochi into a flat circle (I suggest using a wet spoon so the dough does not stick to the spoon).

7. Place a teaspoon size of red bean paste (or other desired filling) on dough.

8. Close up your dough mixture around the filling to form a ball.

9. Place mochi into a baking cup and you’re ready to serve!

Since I know how to make a basic mochi, I’m excited to play around with different fillings… one of these days I’d like to try pumpkin, sweet potato, peanut butter and nutella as fillings.  Not sure if these fillings have been used by others before or how it would taste, but one of these days I will try them out and let you know!  Oh and we can’t forget mochi ice cream, YUM, but that requires some more work of freezing the ice cream into a ball form beforehand so it doesn’t melt as quickly as you try to wrap it.

A perfect pair of pink and white mochi. 🙂