Easy Homemade Daifuku Mochi

I have to say, this dessert and I go a way back. It is traditionally from Japan, of course. However, Indonesia has its own copy-cat version. When I was small, occasionally my family would go up to the mountains for a hike. There was always different rest areas there, but at every rest area you would find vendors with these rice cakes sold in small bamboo-woven baskets. I could eat more than a whole box on my own and was always told to share, which I’d then grudgingly do. 😀

The more traditional filling of these “mochis from the mountains”, as I used to call them, was peanut filling. Or the Daifuku mochis are usually filled with either red or white bean paste. But I guess nowadays, the options for the filling are endless. Which is what I did just a couple of days ago. I decided to fill them with matcha buttercream and strawberry cheesecake. It was a hit! How do I tell? Well, for one thing the whole batch was gone in virtually seconds and my boys, who are always my “taste benchmark”, asked if I could make more. Granted, my eldest asked for more of the matcha ones and my youngest the cheesecake ones. But still… 😉

So, the first thing I did was, obviously, make the mochi. It’s actually pretty easy and requires little ingredients. The main thing you need is glutinous rice flour. Please don’t confuse this with the usual rice flour. It won’t work. I passed this recipe on to a friend a few years back and she called me a few days later and told me it didn’t work and tasted horrible. After a few minutes of confused conversation, I found out that she used rice flour instead of glutinous rice flour… So, just make sure you do get the glutinous rice flour. 🙂 The next thing you’ll need is sugar and water. And that’s it for the rice cake. Later on, when the mochi is cooked, you’ll need a quite generous amount of corn or potato starch for dusting and to prevent the mochi from sticking literally everywhere.

Traditionally you cook the mochi by steaming the batter, for lack of better word, until it turns translucent. This will take somewhere between 15-25 minutes, depending on the heat. However, this time, I opted the microwave method to cut down the time to more than half. Cover your bowl very loosely with cling wrap and microwave it for one minute. Depending on how powerful your microwave is you’ll probably need 3-4 one minute blasts in the microwave. I ended up doing 3 blasts and a fourth one for 30 seconds. Also, you’ll want to stir the mixture in between each blast to ensure even cooking. Make sure you use a wet spatula to mix the mixture, because it can get very sticky.

When the mixture is cooked through, turn it out onto a parchment paper that has been generously sprinkled with corn/potato starch. Be very careful, it will be very hot. I usually let it sit there for 2 minutes before I start doing anything to it. Then sprinkle more starch onto the dough and flatten it to form a rectangular-ish shape with about 1 cm thickness. I find using a rolling pin helps to get an even thickness. You just want to make sure that you dust your rolling pin very generously with starch. Then simply leave it as it is to rest for 20 minutes to let the mochi set.

While the mochi is setting you can make your filling. These days you can purchase red or white bean paste in a well-stocked Asian grocer, so you don’t have to make it yourself from scratch. However, if you’re feeling a little adventurous, why not try other options. In this post, I’m sharing my quick matcha-flavored buttercream and easy strawberry cheesecake. They seriously come together in a flash, you won’t believe how easy it is. The one thing I want to point out for making the fillings is make sure that all your ingredients are in room temperature. It just makes mixing a whole lot easier and you’ll end up with the smoothest fillings.

By the time you’re done with the fillings, the mochi will have set and you’re ready to fill them. There are two options here. You can either use a round cookie cutter and cut out circles or use a pizza cutter to cut squares. Both work just as well. However, my personal preference is the pizza cutter. This is just because I find using the cookie cutter will leave scraps behind, which aren’t usable anymore – the scraps are so heavily covered with starch at this point that even dusting the excess off won’t do much good. And if you try to gather them anyway, your mochi will be lumpy and not very enjoyable. But, to each his own! 🙂

So, when you have your circles/squares cut out just dust off the excess of the surface of the mochi with a pastry brush. Then you’ll want to scoop about a teaspoon (or as much as you want, really ;)) of filling and place it in the middle of the mochi. Then you’ll want to gather the sides and the edges of the mochi to the middle and pinch to seal the mochi. Turn it upside down and you’ll find you have a cute little Daifuku Mochi! <3

They’re best to enjoy when fresh, but you can store the mochis in an airtight container in the fridge. They’ll last for about 2-3 days, if they can make it that long. In my household they never last more than 2 hours. That’s saying something, right? 🙂

Let me know if you’ve tried it or if you have any questions/troubles with these sweets and I’ll help you with troubleshooting! 🙂

Cheers, Revi