Mochi

The original recipe says to follow the amounts exactly, and I did, except that I could not find the coconut milk in the exact size, so I added water to make up the slight difference. You can find the recipe here .

• 1 lb mochiko (glutinous rice flour)
• 2 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 can coconut milk (the recipe called for 14 oz can — I found only 13.66 oz cans and added water to make up the difference
• 1/4 teaspoon red food coloring
• 1/2 cups potato starch (I notice other recipes also allow using the glutinous rice flour as well)

Oven should be preheated to 350 degrees F (or 175 C).  I sprayed a 9 x 13 glass pan with olive oil cooking spray.  Then I whisked together the mochiko, sugar and baking powder until mixed.    Next, in a good sized bowl (large enough to hold the flour mixture AND the liquid mixture) mix the  water, vanilla, coconut milk and food coloring.  Blend in the dry ingredients until mixed well and then pour into 9×13 pan.

Cover the pan with foil and bake for one hour.  Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.  This is the difficult part, as it takes awhile for it to cool.  But, in doing a little reading, this seems to be a very important step, so don’t cheat on this.  Go do something else and forget about it.  I put mine up on a cake cooling rack to let it cool more quickly, but it still took forever, especially since I was anxious to see how it had turned out!

After it has completely cooled, turn it out onto a clean surface that has been dusted with potato starch.  I found that I needed to use a metal spatula to go around the edges a little to loosen the mochi *cake* from the pan, but it came out pretty easily once I did that.  It came out in a nice large piece.  I did have to put two cutting mats down to have a large enough cutting space for it, because, of course, it’s 13 inches long!

One other word of caution, don’t skimp too much on the potato starch, as the mochi is sticky!  The recipe suggests a plastic knife, as it says it will not stick as much.  I happened to have one (from a fast food adventure of some sort) and used that.  It worked just fine, I didn’t have any problem cutting it up. But, a word of warning. It is so sticky that it will actually heal back together where you cut it if you leave it touching!  I had to recut it a couple of times.  Just a funny thing about mochi I guess.

The directions say you will get 36 servings out of this, which by my reckoning is 6 pieces by 6 pieces.  I didn’t really count, but we got more than that.  I started out cutting 6 across, but those were too wide, so I cut each of those in half.  Then I cut each of those into probably 6 or 8 pieces.  So, my guess would be about 72 pieces or so.  But that is a rough guess.

I also did one other thing.  I added a little powdered sugar, along with the potato starch, to the outside.  A mouthful of potato starch just was not that appealing.  And, I have to admit, It was a really nice addition.  You can try some with and without to see what you think.

I don’t know how long these will last in the fridge, and they aren’t lasting long around here.  I wanted to share them with my neighbor Pam,  who found the recipe, but I had better hurry and get some to her!  I had thought I might send some to Marsha, but I think I might have to find more mochiko and make another batch as these are disappearing at an alarming rate.  It might be an acquired taste, I’m not sure, but I have to say.  I LOVE THEM!  And, they are really easy.  The worst part is finding the mochiko (altho it allowed me to renew a wonderful old friendship) and all that potato flour is a little messy to clean up).  Otherwise, really, it’s very easy and turned out amazingly well!  Try this for something really different!