Recipe for Japanese Mochi

Super fun craft day with Lillian today! A mix of cooking, origami, coaster painting, and making buttons, recycled paper, and peanut mochi. 

I love mochi. It's a sort of Japanese rice cake with a variety of fillings. It's easier to make than it seems. We followed the recipe from Issue Eight of Kinfolk Magazine, contributed by Diana Yen. Previously, we tried it with red bean paste. Today, it was peanut filling. Yums. Chewy and flavourful, sweet, but not overly. Here's an adaptation of the recipe.

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M O C H I

^ Ingredients for the dough ^

Glutinous rice flour (1 1/2 cups) – must be glutinous

Granulated sugar (1/2 cup)

Water (1 1/3 cup)

Cornstarch to work with

^ Ingredients for the filling ^

It depends on what you want. Here are two options: 

^ a) Peanut ^ 

Mix ground peanuts with some sugar to sweeten it, 

and water to make it a little paste-y.

b) Red bean

It's like boiling red bean soup, but with less water so it becomes paste instead of soup. You will need: Dry red azuki beans (1 cup) + Water + Granulated sugar (3/4 cup) + Salt (a pinch)

Boil beans and water, then simmer. If the water runs out, just add more. 

Cook until beans are tender. Add sugar and salt. Mash it up. Let it cool.

^ How to make the dough ^

Combine the glutinous rice flour, sugar and water in a microwavable bowl. 

Stir until completely dissolved and smooth.

Microwave for 2 minutes. Stir well. The dough should be very sticky.

Microwave for 1 minute. Repeat until the dough springs back when poked.

It will look something like the above when done.

Allow to rest until cool to the touch. It might take awhile. 

^ The fun(nest) part: Rolling up some mochi ^

On a clean, dry surface, dust some cornstarch.

Rub some on your hands to prevent it from sticking to the dough.

^ Pinch some dough – depends on how big you want the mochi to be. ^

Roll it into a ball, then flatten it. 

Place some filling in the center of the dough,
then pinch it close. Pinching really helps close it nicely.

Roll it up to a nice round shape. 

Coat it with some cornstarch to make it look prettier haha. 

^ These aren't the prettiest, but they are tasty. ^

Kept at room temperature, it will stay nicely bouncy and chewy for two days.

Do not refrigerate or they will harden and be less chewy.

You can have fun mixing things up. I might try green tea dough next time – use green tea instead of water to make the dough.

Have fun with your own mochi!

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Thank you Lillian for the fun, and being the hand model!