The Mochi Experiment
Mochi has always bothered me. When you break it down, there's nothing about rice flour dough and sweet filling that I shouldn't like- and yet, I've never come across a mochi that really grabbed me. How can that be? Plus, it's gluten free, so it has the potential to be an amazing glee midnight snack for the Mersy household.
It all started when I was working on crocheting my first Amineko last week (lots more about him later!!!!!!), and I began exploring Japanese crochet blogs which led me to Japanese cooking blogs which in turn led me to lost of beautiful mochi recipes. Surely, it should be delicious!
And then, I started to think about how everything tastes better when it's homemade, and I realized that I'd never had a commercially made mochi that wasn't tough and bland. The home cooks whose blogs I was reading raved about how soft and gooey and "melt-in-your-mouth" their mochi was, and I thought- aha! This must be how it should be!
So I dug out our sweet rice flour (and later bought a big box of Mochiko) and discovered that homemade mochi is easy to make and absolutely to die for. Seriously. You must give this recipe a try! Here's the basics:
It all started when I was working on crocheting my first Amineko last week (lots more about him later!!!!!!), and I began exploring Japanese crochet blogs which led me to Japanese cooking blogs which in turn led me to lost of beautiful mochi recipes. Surely, it should be delicious!
And then, I started to think about how everything tastes better when it's homemade, and I realized that I'd never had a commercially made mochi that wasn't tough and bland. The home cooks whose blogs I was reading raved about how soft and gooey and "melt-in-your-mouth" their mochi was, and I thought- aha! This must be how it should be!
So I dug out our sweet rice flour (and later bought a big box of Mochiko) and discovered that homemade mochi is easy to make and absolutely to die for. Seriously. You must give this recipe a try! Here's the basics:
- Combine a cup of sweet rice flour with a cup of water and three Tbsp. sugar.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and microwave for a total of 4 minutes, stopping to stir and knead after each minute.
- Cover your countertop with a lot corn start and turn out the mochi dough. Use more corn starch to rub the top of the mochi dough so that there are no sticky spots on top or bottom.
- Once the dough is cool enough, squish it outward with your fingers, using more cornstarch as needed. Stretch the dough until you have about a quarter of an inch thickness.
- Time to cut the dough into little triangles and squares and portion out your fillings.
- Wrap each piece around the filling by drawing the tips of the dough together, squishing the seams and gently creating little balls.
- Fall in love with the magic that is homemade mochi!
We made two different flavors of mochi this week: Banana Nutella and Cappuccino Nutella. For the banana variation, I put in one drop of red food coloring and turned the dough a delicate pink. For the cappuccino, I substituted freshly brewed coffee for the water. Both variations were delish!
Easy peasy, mochi squeezy!
Lots of love,
~Mersydotes
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